Cinema: Taken Too Seriously

Inception: Does For Dreams What Jaws Did For Oceans

2010-08-17T23:05:00.006-04:00

Article first published as Movie Review: Inception Does For Dreams What Jaws Did For Oceans on Blogcritics.

Christopher Nolan has been directing some of my favorite movies of the 2000s. I loved Memento, even the second time. I've been reading comics since 1991, so I was extremely glad for what he's done to the Batman franchise with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. The Prestige was the best supernatural mystery featuring magicians I saw that year (and yes, that includes The Illusionist). I even liked Insomnia, even though he didn't write it. This year, he blew everything away with Inception.

It feels like M.C. Escher had a baby with Philip K. Dick, and this baby was raised by Danny Ocean. Part sci-fi, part magical realism, part caper, and all awesome. After seeing it twice, I feel like I get it enough where I can write about it and it won't be utter gibberish.

The first time I saw Inception it was the weekend after it opened, and the theater was packed. Normally, I hate sitting within the first 20-30 rows of a theater (I know, I'm a stickler), but I sat in the 4th row with my fiancee and we watched it anyway. The second time was just this past weekend, it was less packed, but I still wasn't able to get my optimum seat. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed both viewings, regardless.

I studied film in college, so I'm very much of the mindset that movies are best when they're engaging as well as thought-provoking. Nolan is able to balance a totally insane plot in a rational way. He explains certain things (some critics have said too much), but it's necessary. The viewer would have virtually no way to keep up with the story without the explanations. In reality, very little of the history of their technology is explained; they just explain how it works once you're in the dream.

I'm getting a little ahead of myself. To fully talk about the movie, especially to those who may ot have seen it, I should explain a little about what's going on. In the world of Inception, a technology exists that lets people share dreams. This leads to an illegal practice of sharing dreams to extract secret information; essentially, master thieves called extractors steal secrets right from your head. The plot follows Cobb (DiCaprio) and Arthur (Gordon-Levitt), two talented thieves, an expert Extractor and an ingenious Architect. Cobb is plagued by his past, and Arthur is just looking towards the next job. When an opportunity arises that Cobb can't pass up, he must organize a group of dreamers: An architect even better than Cobb (Ellen Page); a forger that can assume identities of others in dreams (Tom Hardy); a chemist to design the perfect sedative to create all the dream levels they need (Dileep Rao); their client (Ken Watanabe); and their unwilling subject (Cillian Murphy). Cobb's secrets come out of his subconscious with a vengeance as the team tries to pull off the perfect heist in reverse: Inception. Planting an idea in a subjects mind is more difficult than removing information, and they must face dangers and dream levels they haven't seen before to complete the job.

About 75% of this movie features visual effects and tricks that I literally have no idea how Nolan did. As per usual, he doesn't use a 2nd Unit, and does it all himself with his director of photography Wally Pfister. Featuring a deep, intense, and ambient soundtrack by Hans Zimmer, the whole team does a phenomenal job of bringing the viewer into the world of the film, and of the dream. Visually stunning, outrageous, and ground-breaking, you almost can't believe what you're seeing, but it's completely fascinating.

It's been awhile since I've seen a movie this actively thought-provoking, and that sparked such real, actual discussion. There's a lot of great actors giving fantastic performances. The visual effects aren't all clogged with 3D and too much computer generated work. There's an entire set of scenes where Joseph Gordon-Levitt fights and runs around in a hallway that's constantly shifting (and sometimes losing) gravity. The way the dreams work are all carefully thought-out and actually does make sense (in a weird, dream-like sort of way).

I highly recommend going to check out this movie. Not only is it greatly entertaining, but it's a master stroke from Christopher Nolan. It's a culmination of all that he's done so far, and pushed way beyond what we've seen him do. The theater experience is worth it, and I'll probably be buying this movie on Blu-Ray when it comes out.

Inception gets four crazy spinning hallways that should make the Wachowskis tremble in embarrassment out of five, or four crazy-manipulated dream-level mazes that feature endless staircases and other physical paradoxes out of five.

Carriers: Like A Zombie Movie, but With Sick People

2010-08-12T22:58:00.005-04:00

Article first published as http://blogcritics.org/video/article/movie-review-carriers-like-a-zombie/'>Movie Review: Carriers - Like A Zombie Movie, But With Sick People on Blogcritics.

In 2009, brothers Álex and David Pastor released a horror thriller film named Carriers. It follows the exploits of two brothers and their girlfriends as they navigate a wasteland of America. A deadly virus has swept the globe, killing nearly everyone. The survivors have learned to distrust virtually everyone they encounter, trying to avoid infection at any cost.

I've found that it's very difficult to do a post-apocalyptic movie well. The Pastors pull it off pretty well, though. They utilize a lot of desert scenery, and it features a very sparse cast. Chris Pine (Star Trek) and Lou Taylor Pucci (The Chumscrubber) are brothers Brian and Danny Green. Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly) is Bobby, Brian's girlfriend. Emily VanCamp (The Ring Two) is Danny's friend Kate. Christopher Meloni (Law & Order: SVU) has a cameo as Frank, a father whose daughter is infected, and runs across Danny, Brian and the girls.

This film is like most Zombie movies, in that the survivors are eking out a simple and stressful existence in the ruined world, avoiding others, locking their doors, and protecting themselves from infection. In a nod to the youth and gallows humor of these people, they often decorate their masks with faces, designs, teeth, etc. They also run across an abandoned hotel and golf course, and there's a great montage of them golfing, driving around in golf carts, drinking, and playing in sand traps. Their reverie is cut short by their discovery of the pool, which is deeply infected with a dead body.

They run across a few survivors, but they're all openly hostile to our main characters. Plot-wise, Carriers is a little bit thin. Essentially, Brian and Danny want to go back to some beach they remembered from their childhood. The girls are basically along for the ride. Much of the story focuses on Brian and Danny and their relationship; as brothers, they share a unique dynamic in how they deal with conflict. Brian is the de facto leader, but when things start falling apart, and people in their group start getting infected, he may not be quite capable of handling things.

Overall, Carriers is an entertaining but somewhat predictable horror film. It does have some genuine chills, especially when they encounter a deranged scientist experimenting on children to find a "cure." The cliché'd message about family and the journey being more than the destination gets a little hackneyed, but overall, it's enjoyable for its genre.

I give it two demon-masked twenty-somethings poking at dead bodies in pools with sticks out of five, or two predictable but entertaining endings out of five.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World: 8-Bit Awesomesauce

2010-08-10T20:11:00.003-04:00

So I kind of dropped the ball during ComicCon weekend by only blogging about Kick-Ass, and leaving my review of Iron Man 2 in the gutter. But, friends and neighbors, I was able to attend an advanced screening of Edgar Wright's upcoming film based on Bryan Lee O'Malley's mini-series Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, so I hope that makes up for it. Today's the day the soundtrack and original score albums come out for SPvsTW, so it's only fitting that I get to it today. Scott Pilgrim hits theaters this Friday, August 13th.

Scott Pilgrim is a slacker. He's in a band but they kind of suck. He's dating a high schooler but they barely hold hands. He owns approximately two things in his apartment and shares a bed with his cool gay roommate Wallace because he can't afford a bed. He has no job, no goals, no hope. But then he meets Ramona Flowers, a rollerblading American bad-ass hipster babe. You'd think things would only get less complicated from there. But, holy crap, it turns out he has to defeat her seven evil exes in combat in order to earn the right to date her. You'd think this would be too much for a girl Scott just met, but you have severely underestimated how much more interesting his life is now.

The comic book series is six volumes long, and the movie is less than two hours. That being said, they manage to do an extremely good job condensing the plot and action. Things that are left out aren't exactly "unnecessary," but they aren't missed much in the movie. Many of the scenes, shots, lines, and especially costumes are lifted directly from the comic itself. Luckily, Volume 6 had come out just a week or so before we saw the film, so we were able to complete the series before checking out the movie. The film version is different, and has a fairly different climax, but at their core the two are very similar.

Directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, & Spaced), SPvsTW is a fanboy homage to comics, video games, pop culture, and romance wrapped in purposefully dated references, sounds, and even computers (Scott uses AOL, for Pete's sake). The music is hip and has an "indie" feel, and the score is sweeping and hardcore at the same time (Nigel Godrich is a genius). At its core, it stars Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona, Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells, Mark Webber as Stephen Stills... Well, why don't I just point you to The Database page? There are far too many good people in this movie to list them all. With the exception of Ramona, the casting was perfection. Mary Elizabeth Winstead was good, and she's a capable actress. However, I just didn't buy her as Ramona, and felt the casting may have been wrong (though I don't know who could have played her instead). I had my doubts about Michael Cera at first, but I was on board right away once I saw him in action.

The fight scenes were brutal, engaging, entertaining, and very much under the influence of video games. There were some great cameos (wait until you see who they get to play the Vegan Police), and fans of the series should be very satisfied. If you've never read the comics, you'll still enjoy this movie, as long as you enjoy twenty-something romances, kicking rock bands, epic bass battles, and sword duels. The actual violence is minimal: When evil exes are defeated, they explode into coins. Some of the exes don't get enough attention (I didn't like how small the Katayanagi twins were in the film, though their battle was epic), and Scott's own evil ex Envy (amazingly played by Brie Larson) was severely downplayed.

The only real negative to the film was the condensed timeline; the comic series takes place over a series of months, but the movie takes place over what seems to be a week or less. This unfortunately lead to more of a "love triangle" between Ramona and Scott's high-schooler girlfriend Knives (though she's brilliant, played by Ellen Wong), which I didn't feel was a match to the tone of the book. It worked for the film, though, and it wasn't totally random.

Overall, I was really excited I got to see the film in an advanced screening. I've never been able to go to one before, so that definitely was a bonus. I might actually want to go see it again when it comes out, but I may not. It's definitely on my list of DVDs to pick up (or BluRays, if I have a player by then). It's fun, cute, quirky, hip, and wacky. It has action, video games, rock bands, Japanese twins, and Jason Schwartzman as a sword-wielding jerk villain! It has basically everything that you need in a movie.

I give Scott Pilgrim vs. the World three and a half three-second songs by Crash and the Boys (literally) out of five, or three and a half giant hammers being pulled out of handbags out of five.

Kick-Ass: 'Nuff Said, Am I Right?

2010-07-22T20:32:00.006-04:00

In honor of San Diego Comic Con going on this week, today and tomorrow will feature two comic book movie themed blogs! Rejoice, ye nerds, and bask in the glory of my nerd-reviews!

Are you basking?

First off, it's one of the most outrageous, violent, ridiculous, and most awesome comic book movies in a long time: Kick-Ass. Based on a series of comics by legendary creators Brian Michael Bendis and John Romita, Jr., Kick Ass is a tale of a young man who dreams of becoming a superhero. After minimal training, and in a home-made costume, Dave Lizewski is critically injured while attempting to stop a mugging. Stabbed and left for dead, he's taken to the hospital. When he recovers, he suffers from nerve damage. Still spurred by his near-insane need to help people and function as a superhero, he goes back on the streets. His actions attract the attention of the mob and other costumed vigilantes. How can a high-school kid with no superpowers stand up to the entire mob? Well, when he's got a gun-toting, knife-throwing 12-year old girl with him, he may have a chance.

Directed by relative newcomer Matthew Vaughan, Kick-Ass stars Aaron Johnson as Dave Lizewski/Kick Ass, Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Red Mist/Chris D'Amico, Nicolas Cage as Damon Macready/Big Daddy, Marc Strong as Frank D'Amico, and Chloe Moretz as Mindy Macready/Hit Girl. It's a pretty interesting cast of actors for a comic book movie, and surprisingly, Nicolas Cage is not only tolerable, he's actually pretty good. I'm not really familiar with Aaron Johnson, but I guess he plays a young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy, which looks good, too. Chloe Moretz really steals the show, though; she's been in a few things, but she is absolutely malicious and terrifying here.

This film also features one of the better soundtracks out there. It features a few great songs by The Prodigy, and a few good updates of crazy songs for Hit Girl's scenes: Banana Splits by the Dickies, and Bad Reputation by the Hit Girls. I especially like the sort of theme song to the movie, Stand Up by the Prodigy. I normally don't get into film soundtracks, but this one was especially good.

I took my lady to this crazy movie, and surprisingly, she didn't hate it. Essentially, it's not the kind of movie she'd want to go see on her own, but she liked it once she got there. It was funny, interesting, unpredictable, and shockingly violent. A dude gets his leg cut off! Seriously, it's wicked.

It's a fairly standard action movie as far as direction goes; the costumes were amazing, though. Everything looked like it could have been made at home, with household crap, but it also had that slick, Dark Knight kind of look to it, as well. The characters were interesting, and Kick-Ass was a surprisingly ineffective hero, and didn't do a whole lot of ass-kicking. Hit-Girl was the actual bad-ass one, and her dad Big Daddy is crazy brutal. Imagine Batman with a moustache, a shotgun, and a huge grin, and that's almost as intense as Big Daddy was. Red Mist is fantastic, as well; it's basically McLovin' in a costume, driving a fancy car around. I don't want to give any spoilers, but Red Mist has his own reasons for becoming a superhero, and his own agenda.

In some ways, I think the film is moderately realistic. Hear me out, don't just laugh. It's essentially supposed to be our world; a world where people read comics, and there are no superheroes. Nobody turns into Batman; nobody has utility belts full of awesome gadgets. Kick Ass is a kid in a repurposed wet-suit and Doc Marten boots, with two lead pipes strapped to his back. Big Daddy is an ex-cop who trained his daughter to be a killing machine; they both use guns and knives and their crazy fists as weapons. Red Mist does nothing at all, really. They don't go around saving kittens from trees, but they don't battle intergalactic invasions, or giant robots, or supervillains. They fight muggers, gang-bangers. Dave fights High School; imagine that nerd who gets wedgies all the time started working out, threw on some tights, and beat up petty bad guys on weekends.

Overall, it's an extremely entertaining movie. It has little value other than that, but that's by no means a bad thing. It's wacky, insane, violent, full of actually decent action, great nerdy characters, great nerdy comic-book discussions, and things you didn't know you wanted to see until you saw it. For instance, I had no idea I wanted to watch Marc Strong punch a little girl square in the face until I saw it.

I give Vaughan's Kick-Ass three weird, creepy, and sort of amazing performances by Nicolas Cage as a gun-toting maniac ex-cop superhero out of five, or three incredibly amazing scenes featuring a tiny 12-year old in a superhero costume running around shooting, stabbing, maiming, killing, and generally messing up dozens of angry, hulking mobsters out of five.

The Crazies (2010): Somewhat Less Crazy

2010-07-21T19:13:00.006-04:00

Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about the George A. Romero film The Crazies? Well, we finally tracked down the remake from this year, and gave it a good gander. The remake was directed by Breck Eisner, who directed a little piece of something called Sahara a few years ago. Go ahead and scope out his IMDB page; it's right here. He has like four movies in development; three of them are remakes (of Cronenberg's The Brood, Mike Hodges's Flash Gordon, and John Carpenter's Escape From New York). He didn't do an incredibly terrible job remaking Romero's insane original; still, I'm not sure how I feel about a guy making a career out of making remakes of semi-cult classics.

One thing I like better about the remake of The Crazies is the male lead is a lot less unibrow-y; Timothy Olyphant does a pretty good job, as per usual. Let me rewind a moment; let's list a few major differences between the two films. In Romero's version, the film starts much more rapidly. The main character, David, is a firefighter who served in 'Nam. His friend Clank is also a firefighter, who was in 'Nam, Special Forces. David's girlfriend Judy is a nurse, and is pregnant. The military features a much more immediate and overbearing presence in the original film. It also features a much more ambiguous, much less optimistic, and somehow much less open ending than the remake.

In Eisner's version, David (Olyphant) and Judy (Radha Mitchell) are married; David is the Sheriff of the town (in Iowa, rather than Pennsylvania), and Judy is a small-town doctor. Clank is now Russell Clank (Joe Anderson), and is David's deputy. The action starts much more slowly; maybe because it's a modern film, or maybe the style is different, but the remake takes much longer to get underway. A certain amount of time is setting up how idyllic, small, and quaint the town is. In the original, the opening scene features one of the Crazies burning his own house down with his children and (dead/murdered) wife inside. The military shows up almost immediately after that. In the remake, the occasional Crazy shows up; first, at a local baseball game, where David must shoot the man. Then, one of Judy's patients seems to be afflicted. Eventually, David finds the downed plane that Trixie escapes from (something nobody ever does in the original), and eventually determines that the water supply is poisoned (something nobody connects in the original, either). The first few people going crazy were the first houses in the water supply line (a huge leap of reasoning, actually).

Overall, the plot is fairly similar. Plane crashes into the river, the toxin Trixie seeps into the small town's water supply, and the military blockades them in, killing those infected, capturing others, experimenting on them; our heroes get captured (in this version, Judy is captured because her pregnancy elevated her temperature, an early sign of infection), so David and Russell have to rescue her. They eventually escape to the outskirts of town, running across a few more survivors, and seeing more military brutality firsthand. The ending is quite a bit different, as well; it's ultimately a lot more explosion-y, and a lot more open ended. A large chunk of characters featured in the original don't make it to the remake (like the military scientist researching a cure in the town, the man and his daughter that join the group, get infected, have sex [ew], and then get killed), and actual military characters (the military is largely faceless in the remake, and featured surprisingly little).

Overall, I'd say this movie is about as good as a modern version of this story can be. One of these days, I'll have to study the differences between these old horror movies from the 70s and 80s, and their modern remakes. There are a lot of social, cultural, political, and even technological differences between now and then that account for the changes. There's a lot of action, a lot of gore, a lot of creepiness, and a different brand of military representation in this year's The Crazies. It's a decent flick, and you should check it out; I almost wish I had seen the modern version first. It's kind of like watching the movie version before you read the book; oh well.

I give The Crazies three arbitrary nuclear explosions as the heroes drive frantically away in a truck out of five, or three deadly-crazy toxic viruses still inexplicably nicknamed Trixie, stored inside a giant plane that then crashes into a river water-source out of five.

Chloe: Who Wants to Watch Amanda Seyfried and Julianne Moore Make Out?

2010-07-16T20:00:00.001-04:00

I had never seen a film by Atom Egoyan before, to the best of my knowledge. I may have to look up more of his movies if they're all like his 2009 film Chloe. Starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried, Chloe is a psychological thriller with erotic tendencies; I hesitate to call it a flat-out erotic thriller. Mostly because I didn't really realize that's what it was when we watched it... Until the erotic parts happened.

Catherine Stewart (Moore) is a gynecologist, throwing a surprise birthday party for her husband David (Neeson), a music professor. He's in New York giving a lecture, and is late coming back to Toronto, and misses the surprise party. Catherine begins to suspect he's having an affair, especially when she finds a text and photo on his phone from one of his students. After a chance encounter with a young woman in a restaurant bathroom, and frustrated by David's constant flirting, she hires the young woman, Chloe (Seyfried) to seduce her husband and confirm her suspicions that he's cheating. Things eventually take a turn for the scary when Chloe forms an obsession around Catherine, and in addition to David, seduces their son Michael (Max Thieriot). Full of twists, turns, thrills, and surprising sensuality, Chloe has a surprise twist ending to cap the whole crazy mess off.

Since the movie just came out last year, I can't in good conscience spoil it. It's a pretty good one, though; if you pay attention to how the story is being told, and some of the subtle details, you may see it coming. It's still interesting, though.

Where Sharky's Machine was almost unequivocally a violent tribute to manliness, Chloe is the opposite; it may not necessarily be feminist, but it does feature female characters in prominent roles, in somewhat opposite ends of the spectrum. Catherine is a strong, professional woman; although it's interesting that she's a gynecologist (though we only really get to see her actually doctoring in an early scene). Chloe, as a prostitute, is also sort of strong and professional, in a totally different way. They're both a little nuts, too; Catherine is so paranoid that her husband is cheating on her, that she wants to create a situation in which he cheats on her, so she can be proven right. Chloe forms an immediate and unhealthy obsession with Catherine, feeling a deep affection and attraction for her, attempting to inject herself into life as much as possible, even sleeping with Catherine's son. Chloe uses her sexuality as a weapon, and Catherine finds her sexuality shifting and morphing in unpredictable ways.

I'm not gonna lie, there are some pretty intense scenes with Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried. I knew to expect some of that, but the full extent of it was a surprise. I can't really use it as a selling point, but it was definitely a surprise, both in terms of the scenes being in the movie, and it was surprising that these two actresses would be involved in something like that.

Everyone's great in this movie; Liam Neeson is always interesting, and Julianne Moore is intense as a woman facing her middle age, her husband's flirtation, feelings of inadequacy, and her new, growing desires. Amanda Seyfried plays an unusual role as Chloe; she's manipulative, often violent, aggressively sexual, and often times entirely menacing. It's intriguing that as a younger woman and a less experienced actress, she can dominate so many scenes over Julianne Moore (not to mention physically and emotionally dominate Moore's character).

Egoyan seems to pay special attention to th sets, backgrounds, and especially mirrors throughout the movie. The mise-én-scéne is modern and simple; Catherine and David's home is large, modern, full of tall doors, tall windows, mirrors, paintings, and expensive equipment and furniture (which is just in the background, having nothing to do with the story, but showing their evident affluence). There's also an understated and nearly subtle connection between Catherine and some sense of Chloe's mother; Chloe wants to give Catherine a hair pin that Chloe's mother gave her when they first meet; she tries to give it to her again, later. Chloe tries to kill Catherine with it in the climax of the film, and Catherine is wearing it in her hair in the final scene and final shot of the film.

Chloe is an intense, surprisingly twisty modern erotic thriller. Again, this isn't normally a genre I enjoy, or even really watch (as in, at all), but I was pleasantly surprised by this film. I'd recommend it, if this is the kind of thing you might enjoy.

I give Atom Egoyan's Chloe three creepy bug-eyed starey shots of Amanda Seyfried out of five, or three completely unanticipated and random shots of various actresses naked, holy crap it was so weird out of five.

Sharky's Machine: Nothing to do With Sharks or Machines

2010-07-15T19:13:00.003-04:00

Burt Reynolds has directed a few movies, did you know that? And some TV shows, too. He's no Scorsese, but at least he's no Edward D. Wood, Jr., either. In 1981, he directed and starred in Sharky's Machine, which was his most successful. It also featured some impressive stunt-work by the legendary Dar Robinson, who performed the highest wireless free jump from a building in a film, although in the final cut of the film cuts short the full extent of this fall.

While undercover, Narcotics officer Sharky (Reynolds) is interrupted by fellow officer Smiley (Darryl Hickman), and the bust goes sour, resulting in a pregnant woman being held hostage, and Sharky having to shoot and kill the dealer. After, Sharky is busted down to Vice, literally in the basement, where a rag-tag group of weirdos and more weirdos struggle at the bottom of the barrel. They accidentally discover a high-class prostitution ring, and a mysterious assassin is picking off high-end clients. During their observation of the $1,000 per night hooker Dominoe (Rachel Ward), Sharky begins to fall in love with her. Eventually she is shot and killed, and Sharky seeks to find her killer, a drug addict named Billy Score. His brother Victor seems to be pulling the strings in the prostitution ring, even being involved with a gubernatorial candidate. Sharky and his "machine" (the group of vice weirdos he assembles around himself) find Dominoe alive (her friend was killed accidentally, because she was staying at Dominoe's), find out that Smiley is involved somehow, Sharky gets tortured by Smiley before killing them, until they finally confront Billy Score.

If that synopsis didn't make much sense, don't worry; it's not entirely my fault. The entire scope of the movie is largely nonsensical, and based almost entirely on action movie cliché, motivations, and characterizations. Sharky seems entirely motivated by the fact he's a cop; there's no real sense of his home life, friends outside of other cops, etc. There's an attempt to show maybe a glimpse of what he's missing by having one of his machine have a wife and family; but he seems uninterested. The machine are motivated by hating being in vice; they look up to Sharky because of his reputation, but also seem to have little of their own aspirations aside from this one particular investigation. Sharky runs around, shooting bad guys, falling in love with hookers (and then threatening her with violence when she stands up to him and refuses to give him some information). I'm sure an entire study on masculine roles, general masculinity and violence, and the roles of females almost entirely as prostitutes, but it would take far too long. It's kind of everywhere, and likely doesn't even attempt to make any apologies for it.

Overall, there's not much to say. It's an early 80s action movie, which means it's still mostly the 70s; there's a lot of Dirty Harry flavor going on here, but it's hard not to say that about any action movie. The "Machine" does get a good bit of screen time, featuring some great character actors, and everyone does actually have their crucial role to play in getting things resolved.

My favorite part is the ending; Billy Score kills his brother Vincent in some sort of drug-rage. Then Sharky confronts him, shoots him, and he crashes through the window, falling like 60 stories to his death. Then, after that, there's a jarringly random shot of Sharky and Dominoe at some sort of playground, and I think she's on the swings. Happy ending! Credits. This was the famous Dar Robinson stunt, where he fell free of wires over 200 feet to an airbag, but the shot only shows him for a few seconds, and then the rest is obviously a dummy. I think Burt Reynolds probably didn't get a good enough usable shot after the first few moments of the stunt, so they had to just chuck a dummy wearing a suit out a window.

The jarring ending actually takes a star away, because it's so random and tacked on. That may not be Burt's fault, but it's still a major issue with the movie. It's kind of funny sometimes, though, and has some decent action; and by "decent action" I mean "really loud gunshot sound-effects and smashing into stuff."

If you like that sort of thing, check it out. If you don't like action movies at all, then you probably won't like it. It's always interesting to see Younger Burt Reynolds, though. I give this movie two and a half nonsensical and frustratingly misleading titles out of five, or two and a half terribly wasted stunts combined with incredibly random and totally unnecessary endings out of five.

Night Shift: Hookers, Corpses, and The Fonz

2010-07-14T19:34:00.005-04:00

I really love the 80s. I mean, what other decade can Shelley Long play a prostitute, and not be considered churlish. It's also the time for funny Michael Keaton, early Ron Howard, synthesizer music, and bizarre cameos of later-famous actors. Specifically, I'm here to talk about Night Shift, released in 1982. Directed by Ron Howard and starring Michael Keaton in his first film role, and Henry Winkler in an amusing mid-Fonzie role. Co-starring Shelley Long and featuring a brief appearance of a young Kevin Costner as a frat boy, a very young Shannon Doherty, and enough corpses, hookers, pimps, and a disturbingly young Richard Belzer to fill some bizarre quota you didn't even know you had.

An oddly simple plot allows this movie to simply run around like a hyperactive toddler, following a relatively cohesive storyline, with surprisingly good pacing. Henry Winkler plays a decidedly anti-Fonzie milquetoast Chuck Lumley, a former Wall Street stockbroker who now works in a morgue to reduce stress. He gets moved to the Night Shift, and he just accepts it. He meets Bill "Blaze" Blazejowski (Keaton) a young, hip, exuberant crazy person just hired to work at the morgue. He almost immediately breaks the rules by using the hearse as an impromptu limo (and uses it to take a young Clint Howard to the prom). When Chuck finds his neighbor Belinda (Long) in the elevator, beaten up, he realizes that she's a prostitute whose pimp was killed in the opening scenes of the movie. Somehow, Bill convinces Chuck to become "nice pimps" to Belinda and a handful of other women. Needless to say, things get wacky, weird, crazy, and a little scary. Belinda's pimp's killers are looking for them, since they're muscling in on their racket with their stock options, benefits, and flex-plans or whatever. A shoot-out ensues, and eventually things turn out ok for everyone, except for the pimps, I guess.

Ok, I need to work on making my summaries a little more succinct. But I can't help it! This film is a classic in the Lady's household, and I'd never seen it up til a few weeks ago. I do have to say, Netflix has been a lifesaver lately.

I've always been a Ron Howard fan; a little trivia, the year before I was born (the year before this movie was released), my parents were in California visiting friends, and while out to dinner, they saw Ron Howard and his wife having dinner. They also had little baby Bryce Dallas with them, too. Anyway, good ol' Opie knows how to direct a movie, and he started to show his real chops with movies like Night Shift. Some of you out there may not know this, as well, but Michael Keaton was originally a purely comedic actor. In the 80s he gave us such gems as Beetlejuice and Johnny Dangerously. And now I realize that Night Shift fits that category as well. Henry Winkler is a great actor, as we see his transformation to hip, awesome, cool Fonzie into meek, antacid-popping Chuck. Of course, both Chuck and Bill learn some valuable life-lessons along the way.

I was never a fan of Shelley Long, though. Having her portray a heart-of-gold hooker doesn't do much to make her seem any cooler, either. She's a little Julie Hagerty to me, a little too waif-y and skinny and interesting looking to be pretty. Luckily, we don't see much of her anymore.

It's also interesting to note that Kevin Costner appears in this movie; he literally doesn't speak. He's a Frat Boy at a party that Bill decides to throw inside the morgue with the prostitutes. He also had a brief role in The Big Chill, released the next year, but his scenes were cut. Within ten years of Night Shift, he was literally directing, producing, and starring in an Oscar-winning movie. What the hell, Kevin Costner. If you can do that in less than a decade, why haven't I wanted to watch a movie you've made in longer than that? It's crazy.

Overall, this was kind of a rambling post. But the main point to take away is: It's funny. It's not ridiculous; well, it is a little, but in an oddly believable way. It's early enough in the 80s that it's not all hypercolor and neon and velcro Reeboks and whatnot, but it's not totally 70s anymore, either. The characters are interesting, fairly round, and easy to identify with. The premise is just outlandish enough to fit in with the era of Airplane!, Animal House, and the like, but real enough to not be some sort of bizarre spoof.

I liked this movie. I miss the comic days of Michael Keaton, the days that Kevin Costner didn't say anything, and the days that Shelley Long was a star. I miss nerdy Henry Winkler (he kind of reminded me of a less insane version of Henry's Barry Zuckerkorn character from Arrested Development. Ok, not really, I just wanted to remember Arrested Development for a minute). I think this post is getting so rambling because I'm watching part of the movie in my head as I write this. I liked it, and want to watch it again.

I recommend it. Go rent it. Find it, it's worth checking it out. And it's pretty low-key, so you can belong to a pretty cool exclusive club. I give it four start-up corporations featuring benefits, insurance, stock options, all for hookers out of five, or four strange senses of disbelief that Shelley Long could make a living as a prostitute out of five.

Tiptoes: Literally One of the Worst Movies I've Seen

2010-07-08T18:37:00.004-04:00

In 2003, a movie was released with such a ridiculous premise, such an outlandish plot, that one would assume it had some redeeming qualities. I assumed that it would be one of those movies that was so weird, so utterly idiotic, and so utterly stupid, that it would almost certainly have to be entertaining. If I was a betting man, I'd owe Ben Franklin an iPod, because this movie is absolutely terrible.

Seemingly written, produced, and cast purely on a bet, like Scottish cuisine, Matthew Bright's TipToes "stars" Matthew McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale, Gary Oldman, Peter Dinklage, and Patricia Arquette. Sounds like a pretty good cast, right? Oh, that's what we thought, too. Anything with Gary Oldman simply must have something good about it. Again, I think this is based on dares or bets or blackmail; Gary Oldman plays a dwarf named Rolfe, who is the twin brother of Steven (Matthew McConaughey), who is not a dwarf. Kate Beckinsale plays Steven's girlfriend Carol, who didn't know Steven's family was all dwarfs until the movie. What's more, she's totally pregnant with his child, and she's (I'm serious) deadly concerned the baby might be a dwarf. You know what's weirder? Steven, who grew up with dwarfs and goes to annual conventions, is dead-set against the baby, again because of the fear it will be a dwarf. So she gets to know his family, may or may not fall in love with Rolfe (it's never clear), and SPOILER ALERT the baby is in fact born a dwarf.

At first (nothing against little people), I thought the movie must be spun as something of a comedy. But it's as melodramatic as an emo Nicholas Sparks after being stood up at the prom. They fight, they yell, they scream at each other, and they seem to have had entire discussions about starting a family where it never once occurs to Steven that his genetic proclivities may produce a dwarf. Also, I apologize if I'm using any un-PC variations here; I can never remember the rules. I suppose I should switch to "little person."

In addition to the "story," the other cinematic features of this "film" are questionable. The editing is haphazard and most often abrupt. Transitions are nonexistent or nonsensical. It never quite seems to do what you expect it, but in a jarring, alarming way. Many of the shots are set up awkwardly to accommodate Gary Oldman's costume; they use some fairly poor tricks to make it appear as though he's a little person.

The characters are all vaguely uninteresting, fairly flat, largely underdeveloped, and licking in common motivation. Often times, they do, say, and react in ways that make no sense at all. Coupled with a plot that rapidly deteriorates into pure melodrama and unrelenting conflict, with an incredibly dissatisfying hackneyed ending that completely refused to actually resolve anything, or complete even a coherent thought. It just simply ... ends.

Apparently this film debuted at Sundance, and I can't imagine it received any rave reviews, awards, etc. The rumor is that Oldman was the driver of the project and wanted to play this dwarf character. Although in general he's a fantastic actor, even he couldn't save this abysmal production. Up to this point, Matthew Bright had only directed odd action/comedy films (Freeway, Freeway II, and Bundy), so this serious, romantic drama seemed a bit beyond him.

If you see this film and think "wow, that may just be wacky enough to be good," or "hey, this may be funny, it's extremely not what you think. It may be entertaining if you're drunk, but I highly doubt it. I wouldn't even really recommend this film out of morbid curiosity.

I give Tiptoes a well-deserved one obviously fake and laughably unconvincing dwarf Gary Oldman out of five, or one painfully awkward series of events, plot points, and the stilted dialogue of Anne Rice fan-fiction out of five. Did that last one make sense? Doesn't matter; this movie didn't.

Toy Story 3: Holy Lord Those Toys Are Freaking TALKING

2010-07-07T19:32:00.003-04:00

We haven't had a new Toy Story movie since the last century. Can you believe it? Can you?! You can't, you liar. The third installment in the immensely popular Disney/Pixar film has been highly anticipated; the last one came out before I was a legal adult! That's crazy to think about. It was worth the wait.

While not directed by John Lasseter, it found itself in the capable hands of Lee Unkrich (Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo), and is truly epic in its scope, scale, and animation. Where the original Toy Story pioneered the use of this level of computer animation for a full-length film, Toy Story 3 kicks it up a notch. It does have 3D, yes, which is done tactfully and tastefully (adding depth and weight, rather than trying to throw things at the camera), but I don't assume it's essential to the process (as 3D generally isn't "essential"). I had heard rumours that the plot was slightly derivative, and I didn't find that to be the case. It calls back quite strongly to the original movie (almost skipping Toy Story 2 references entirely, with the exception of Jessie and Bullseye), and it was actually nice to see all the main characters back together.

Andy, the little boy, is now a young man. He's 17, and going off to college. He's gotten rid of most of his toys, but has kept the main cast of characters; Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Bullseye, Ham (John Ratzenberger), Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head (Don Rickles & Estelle Harris), Slinky-Dog, and T-Rex (Wallace Shawn). All the voice actors are back, with the exception of the late, great Jim Varney for obvious reasons (voiced this time around by Blake Clark). The characters have always been wonderfully defined, so they fall back into their old routines without a hitch, and are familiar instantly. Even Andy has the same voice actor, in John Morris, who has grown up with the character.

The plot is somewhat new, but also mixes up several elements of the first two movies. As Andy's going off to college, the toys are afraid they'll be thrown out. Andy wants to take Woody to college with him, and put the other toys in the attic. Andy's mom, however, mistakes the bag of toys for trash, and the toys think they've been rejected. They're donated to a day-care, which is run by Lotso, a strawberry-scented old teddy bear (voiced by Ned Beatty). The toys soon find out that there's more to this daycare than meets the eye, and desperately seek a way to escape and get back to Andy.

The story also focuses somewhat more than usual on the human characters; we get a sense that Andy and his family have been fleshed out in more ways than just their updated appearances. Laurie Metcalf returns as Andy's mom, and Andy himself is shown to feel a strong connection and love for the toys. I had heard rumours that the plot was similar to The Brave Little Toaster, an incredibly melodramatic (and slightly terrible) animated movie about appliances that seek to reunite with their owner (inexplicably a child). I'm not sure why this kid loved his frigging toaster and vacuum cleaner so much, but it's creepy. We know that Andy loves his toys, and it's understandable that he's reluctant to let these go and grow up. I assume that there are a lot of members of the audience bringing their children to this movie, after having seen the first one fifteen years ago. I don't have kids, but in the future, I can definitely imagine showing these movies to them.

The film is honestly frightening in several scenes. It has an intense climax, and a deeply heartwarming and unstoppably tear-jerking ending that fully, aptly, and satisfyingly wraps up the film series. It's the best ending the films could have. I highly recommend that you see this movie, in 3D or in regular ol' 2D. If you have kids, nieces, nephews, grandkids, you need to take them along. It's a fantastic family movie, a great ending to a wonderful series, and it's actually a great story, set of characters, music, computer generated effects, it's all over great.

I give the film 5 creepy old strawberry scented evil bear monsters out of five, or five Spanish Buzz Lightears dancing the flamenco or lambada or tango or some such nonsense out of five.

The Crazies: Romero's Autobiography

2010-07-06T20:57:00.005-04:00

I kid, I kid. It's not really Romero's autobiography. However, it's rather apt that one of his early films (after he established himself as a crazy person) would be so cleverly titled. Released in 1973 (five years after Night of the Living Dead), it was only his fourth movie.

Nobody in this movie is likely to be familiar to the average audience. The only thing I noticed is that the hero of the story looks a bit like Judd Hirsch (you know, that guy from Taxi?), but more fit, and with an immensely wicked and appalling unibrow. His partner Clank is probably suffering from PTSD, and is also a really goofy-looking S.O.B. I'm not entirely certain how such undeniably handsome gentlemen became the leads in this movie.

The film was remade last year, and is on DVD now. I need to check it out as well. (I'm also going to get on a kick to watch original horror movies and then their modern remakes to compare and contrast the methods of storytelling, plot, character, and how the elements of horror and how the horror is presented changes over the years.) Overall, the story revolves around a small town (as it always does) and its cache of quaint, fairly normal inhabitants (of course). Unbeknownst to David (Will MacMillan) and his pregnant girlfriend Judy (Lane Carroll), a deadly toxin ha seeped into the town's water supply. This toxin (codenamed TRIXIE of all things) causes people to turn against their neighbors, friends, and family, turning into raging, slavering, murderous slaves to their own impulsive ids. Of course, this is supremely dangerous (even though they tend to act violently, they are essentially free, which the 60s was all about). The powers-that-be decided that they would be best to nuke the living bejeesus out of Evans City, Pennsylvania.

The plot follows David and Judy, as well as his friend Clank (Harold Wayne Jones). David and Clank are firemen, and served in Vietnam together. When called to a house-fire, it becomes apparent that it was set on purpose. The military almost immediately swoops in and surrounds the town, putting it on lockdown, and sequestering the infected (or killing them, or both). I think we can assume how the movie ends from there.

As with NotLD, Romero seeks to make a statement through these films. The American Military (its infantry, its administration, inherent bureaucracy, extreme violence, etc.) is heavily featured. This is a general theme, even in Zombie films. It fits that the main characters are firemen; several of his zombie films feature police officers as survivor characters. The small town itself is an innocent; "Trixie" is released into the water supply when a government plane crashes in the outskirts of the town (prior to the events depicted in the film). The audience is treated to the backstory of these events by round-table discussions of military men (though they could be more corporate; most of them wear suits without displays of rank, affiliation, etc.).

The Crazies features zombies of sorts; it's interesting that they're so clearly and obviously explained away as being a toxic infection. It could have easily been a sequel to Night of the Living Dead, some interstitial zombie film between NotLD and Dawn of the Dead. But it isn't; it's The Crazies, the word "ghoul" or "zombie" or similar doesn't appear in the film. There is still the fear of the infected, the fear of turning. The warning signs appear on all the survivors except for David, and we dread the moment they turn. The military is quick to react, quick to gun down an infected person, no matter what.

The Crazies amps up the violence, gore, mutilation, and horror factor tenfold in the five short years after NotLD. There's blood, beheadings, incest (seriously, it's pretty messed up), and in general craziness. It went relatively unknown for quite awhile in larger circles, I think. The zombie films always get the most attention. I've been trying to find it for years; I'm lucky they remade it. It made it much easier to get via Netflix.

All in all, I'd recommend this movie to any Romero fan, horror fan, or general 70s zombie-style insanity. I'll have to check out the remake, as well, to see how they differ. Based on the trailer, I have a pretty good idea of what'll be different (I think David is a Sheriff and Clank is his Deputy in the new version).

I give it three and a half unibrowed Judd Hirsches out of five, or three and a half insanity-inducing government toxins named "Trixie" out of five.

Alice in Wonderland: It Ain't Yer Mama's Disney

2010-03-12T20:01:00.009-05:00

I grew up with the Disney version of Lewis Carrol's "Alice in Wonderland," like many people of the last fifty years. I've tried reading it, and the guy was so fueled by drugs (evidently) that it's difficult to get through. I'll have to make another stab at it, after watching Tim Burton's interpretation. Not to say that Burton's interpretation is extremely accurate; in fact, I'm quite sure there are many departures from the original material. Tim Burton has put forth a lot of interesting adaptations in the last few years, though this is somehow even more light-hearted than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Tim Burton's interpretation stars Johnny Depp (the Mad Hatter) and Helena Bonham Carter (the Queen of Hearts), of course, as well as Anne Hathaway (the White Queen) and relative newcomer Mia Wasikowska as Alice. Alan Rickman has a brief cameo as the Caterpillar, and Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts. One of the best characters has always been the Cheshire Cat, which is marvelously CG'd, and voiced perfectly by Stephen Fry. It really is great casting, and if anyone was to play the Mad Hatter as a primary character in a Tim Burton Movie, it had to be Johnny Depp. Mia Wasikowska pulls her own weight throughout the film, which is interesting considering she's presented at varying heights and sizes thanks to potions and cakes.

Now, I really enjoy Tim Burton's films. It is kind of strange that he's only directed adaptations in the last few years, and nothing original. It's not terrible, per se, but I kind of wish he'd come up with something new. Of course, I like new versions of classics or well-established film institutions. But I kind of miss new things like Edward Scissorhands. Oh well. It remains a visually intriguing, sweeping film with subtle and cinematically relevant 3D effects, with a whimsical touch to the original story and a strong attention to character and emotion.

There have been a lot of complaints and criticisms out there about the lack of plot in this film, and I'm not entirely convinced that these detractors actually recognize what that word means. This film clearly has a plot, and is much more attentive to character and overall story than previous versions. Generally, Alice in Wonderland is little more than a random series of bizarre interactions that eventually stop. However, I feel that Tim Burton was able to turn this into something compelling and filled with action, as well as humour and good character. This is partly due to the writing (not by Burton, but Linda Woolverton), and partly the depth of performance.

I may be gushing a bit too much, since I have a near-perpetual soft-spot for Tim Burton movies and the absolute insanity of Lewis Carrol. It's still a good film, worth watching, entertaining, and engaging. Plus, it's almost always worth seeing a film in 3D if you can help it. Johnny Depp is an interesting Mad Hatter, truly crazy, with big crazy eyes, and the occasional Scottish Braveheart-esque accent when he's feeling particularly determined. The Queen of Hearts is comically evil, with her giant bobble-head. The final chess-board showdown is pretty intense as well, where Alice must face down a dreaded monster to win a war she's barely even aware of.

Go see it in the theater in 3D if you can, it's a great experience. Otherwise, I guess you can wait to rent it, but I don't see much point in it. Of course, I'll probably buy it when it comes out on DVD, and I'll hope it's released in 3D there, too, like Coraline. Plus, I just like seeing the Lady wearing those big ol' Buddy Holly glasses. I just wish they'd release it in the same formatting as the theatrical release, that way I can use these dumb glasses again.

I give Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland three and a half rampaging bandersnaches out of five, or three and a half delirious, Scottish, mangy, twitchy, manic and tea-loving March Hares out of five. EAVB_BAEKJGFYIL

Give 'Em Hell, Malone: Give 'Em A Plot, Instead

2010-03-03T21:15:00.004-05:00

The title of this post probably sounds a little harsher than it really needs to. However, I couldn't think of anything more clever. Give 'Em Hell, Malone is a stylistic and action-packed neo-noir, full of hard-boiled, square-jawed, gravel-voiced pile of weirdness. It lacks the snappy, intelligent dialogue often characterized by traditional noire or neo-noir. It's basically comic book noir, lots of hard-punching, hard-shootin', gritty-ass action.

Directed by Russell Mulcahy (Highlander, The Shadow, Resident Evil: Extinction) and starring Thomas Jane (Hung, The Mist, Dreamcatcher) as the titular Malone and Ving Rhames (Mars Attacks!, Mission: Impossible, Surrogates) as a hired gun set out to butt heads, this film is totally ridiculous. It's written by Kurt Wimmer though, and he wrote Equilibrium, Ultraviolet, The Recruit, and the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, so...

It opens with a completely arbitrary gunfight, where Malone is only distinctive in the fact that he's Thomas Jane. The audience isn't even completely sure that he's a "good guy," because he shoots and kills a building full of henchmen. It gets even more nonsensical from there!

Basically, Malone steals a briefcase, which contains "The Meaning of Love," a small toy. He's contracted to do it, and when he meets his client, a beautiful woman, he's instantly suspicious. Why wouldn't he be? It's not set in the '40s or anything; it's completely contemporaneous. Yet he wears a fedora, classic old-school suit. He's misogynistic, quick to shoot, quick to punch, and a raging alcoholic. While investigating who set him up to steal the case, he's being pursued by multiple assassins, hired by a crime boss trying to go legit. Sort of. I guess. Also, his mom's a drunk and patches his gunshot wounds, and his cat won't take his medicine. These are real sub-plots.

Overall, it's not terrible. Thomas Jane is really, really good at the ol' lantern-jawed ass-kicker. Ving Rhames is pretty brilliant as a hitman named Boulder whose wife is dying, and wants to go legit as well. There aren't that many interesting characters, because they're either liars, drunks, thugs, or a combination therein. He also drives an extremely awesome car, a 1952 Chop Top Buick Straight 8, primer black with red rims and white wall tires. It's a huge, imposing, ridiculous car. Much like the film itself.

Give 'Em Hell, Malone is a huge, lumbering, staggering, face-punching pistol-shooting dame-swatting rampage through noir wearing an action costume. Thomas Jane is anachronistic, flat, and predictable, but he's entertaining. Uh, I mean, his character is. It's fairly entertaining, somewhat thin in plot, and it's fairly stylishly directed. One thing I hate about movies these days is the continuous use of computer generated blood; I miss the old days of squibs and blood-packs. It's too fake, it's too strange. Oh well, I guess.

I give Give 'Em Hell, Malone two-and-a-half dudes being lit on fire, only to come back and get lit on fire again later out of five, or two-and-a-half "meanings of love" that turn out to be toys in the end for some reason out of five.

Saw VI: Six Times Not As Good

2010-03-01T17:45:00.001-05:00

Unfortunately, I already own Saw I-V, so I pretty much have to buy Saw VI now. At 1hr 30something minutes, it's the shortest one that I can remember, but I may not have noticed before. It picks up right where Saw V left off, which is to say, right in the middle of Crazy Murder Town. I don't want to give too much away in terms of plot, since none of these films are very old, but it's not quite as good as the others. Directed by little-known Kevin Greutert, he was an editor on several of the previous Saw films. He's also filming Saw VII as we speak, despite the tagline "Game Over" associated with the sixth installment. I'm honestly wondering how many more of these they're going to end up making...

Quick plot run-down: Jigsaw is a crazy mo-fo. He designs Rube Goldbergian deathtraps for "bad" people to sacrifice themselves out of; in essence, his victims "kill themselves" trying to escape their traps. Throughout the previous five films, various police detectives have tried to track him, as he constructs more and more elaborate traps and machines for his victims. They also attempt to show the audience some sort of "pattern" involved in the victims and the accomplices Jigsaw ends up roping together. Jigsaw (or John) was a cancer victim that decided to use his last days, somewhat considerable money, and criminally insane mind to show people the value of life by making them face their death (and prior sins) head on.

In this installment, Jigsaw's accomplices capture an Insurance Vice President that, through his decision to deny coverage, has been responsible for the deaths of several validly sick people (including Jigsaw). He forces him to go through four tests in order to save his loved ones; he ultimately ends up killing seven of his employees in the process, as part of the game. Meanwhile, the police are catching up to the accomplice(s), and John's widow receives a mysterious box from her husband with his final wishes as Jigsaw.

All in all, these movies are generally enjoyable for fans like me. I didn't like Hostel, but mostly because I found the European Sexcapades portion of the first half quite arbitrary and frankly boring. I just wanted all the gore and horror and violence! Saw never disappoints in that respect; the first "throwaway" trap (often used in these later films to show some quick victims that don't necessarily affect the overarching plot) features people required to remove "pounds of flesh" from themselves to prevent time-released bolts from screwing into the sides of their skulls. I know this doesn't sound entertaining, but for some reason, it kind of is.

I studied horror film somewhat in college, and have read many articles that liken horror to pornography. It's essentially designed to elicit an involuntary bodily response. In horror's case, that response is fear, terror, revulsion. The impulse to recoil, cry out, and hide your faces. For people like me (more or less casual sociopaths, people that watch eagerly as the guy cuts his love-handle off to put on a scale, or watch a woman hack her own arm off with a butcher knife), it's engaging and entertaining, we look up at the screen and enjoy. It's over the top, of course, and clearly not realistic in any possible fashion.

I wouldn't say I'm maladjusted, or desensitized to violence. I'm sure if a woman walked up to me on the street and cut her own freaking arm off, I would probably vomit all over myself in sheer pants-shitting terror. However, when I watch Saw VI, I'm constantly, acutely aware that this is a movie, and nothing more. At best there are some metaphors here somewhere, but it's unlikely. This film has no great love for good directing; Greutert's job is to point that camera at someone getting shot, or crushed to death, or injected with acid, or getting hot steam blown in their faces. He's not trying to create visual metaphors or some deeper meaning. He's trying to scare the hell out of anyone that he can.

If you like Saw, or have seen any of the other five, you may want to check it out. They really are trying to tell one big, long, crazy-ass story across all these movies. I'm curious as to how many there will be, and where it's really going. However, if you've never seen them, don't start here. Overall, they're all pretty terrible. But they're a special kind of terrible, known to every true horror fan out there.

I guess I could give it a cliché'd three severed fingers out of five, but I think I'd rather give it three terribly edited "frenetic" scenes of screaming faces out of five, or three pounds of human flesh self- removed out of five.

Up in the Air: Up in My Heart

2010-02-26T21:50:00.003-05:00

There are ten films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar this year. Think about it: TEN. There are usually half that many nominated. The Academy will have a difficult decision to make this year; all ten of the films are (obviously) different, in terms of genre, style, and levels of "good"ness. Jason Reitman is finally nominated this year, for his modern dramedy Up in the Air. George Clooney stars as Ryan Bingham, a perpetually traveling expert at firing people. When an up and coming co-worker (Anna Kendrick) shakes things up by suggesting firing by teleconference, his world of airports, hotels, and airplanes is threatened. To try and salvage his way of life, he takes her on a trip to show her what it's really like. Along the way, Ryan forms a relationship with Alex, a fellow cross-continent trekker, and attempts to bond with his sisters. Ultimately, Ryan finds out the best ways to interact with those around him, and starts to find some small comforts in finding "home."

It's honestly an interesting film. It's partly a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the country's current economic situation, as well as our blasé sensibilities when it comes to travel. One of Ryan's primary goals in life is to accumulate 10 million miles traveled, in order to gain some vague sense of prestige, as well as his place as the seventh (and youngest) person to achieve this "honor." He makes several references to the fact that he's traveled more miles than it would take to get to the Moon, but treats it as a joke. That's a lot of miles, a lot of travel, and he gathers miles like philatelists gather stamps, or numismatics gather coins. It's a hobby which becomes a way of life; he doesn't mind his job, at all. He takes offense to Natalie's (Kendrick) idea to teleconference their contracted firings, because he doesn't want to be in one place for too long.

Jason Reitman knows how to direct a good movie. And he should, given that he's Ivan Reitman's kid, the mad genius behind Ghostbusters and Stripes. However, he's taken a different stylistic path, choosing to produce and direct quirky, character-driven dramas with plenty of comedy. His previous films, Juno and Thank You for Smoking are both at once hilarious and down to earth; based on pure character and dialogue, with understated camera work and set design. He takes care to showcase the performance of his actors, allowing his directing, the costumes, editing, and general mise-en-scéne enhance the characters rather than overshadow them. All too often a director will focus on style and forsake substance; there's no reason that you can't do both, and Reitman proves it yet again.

Clooney is brilliant as always; he's transitioning quite well into the "older" gentleman roles, accepting the fact that, as a non-Highlander human, he's going to get older. This isn't to say that he's "old," or grandpa-ish. He still projects strength and energy; however, he finds himself in a situation that he's so far withdrawn from that he barely knows how to think about it. He manages to flounder without struggling, which is no small feat.

Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick are powerful juxtapositions in their characters; Kendrick is young and inexperienced, yet bursting with ideas and a desire to make her mark. Farmiga is more experienced, both as an actress and in her character, but she's a great companion for Clooney's character. Ultimately, she's simultaneously more grounded and much more detached than even he, much to his disappointment.

Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons, Zach Galifinakis, Sam Elliott, and Danny McBride each have memorable cameos; Bateman as Clooney's boss, J.K. Simmons and Zach Galifinakis as employees that Clooney must fire as part of his job, Sam Elliott as an airline pilot, and McBride as Clooney's future brother-in-law. Although their roles are brief, they help expand and root Clooney's character, giving him someone to interact with. Luckily, he finds himself surrounded by capable co-stars, each playing off one another. Another interesting juxtaposition to the ida that his character is adrift, alone and surrounded by people.

Bottom line is I'd recommend seeing this film. I hope it wins some Oscars (I know it won some Golden Globes). I'll probably be buying it when it comes out on DVD. It's funny, it's sweet, it's sometimes sad, but it's ultimately fulfilling and enlightened. I give it four large caches of random hotel room keys out of five, or four cardboard couple cutouts out of five.

9: Out of 10, Essentially

2010-02-03T18:45:00.003-05:00

I like cartoons. I especially like cartoons geared for adults, or at the very least older teens. Though many cried shenanigans at the evident similarities between Shane Acker's 9 and the game Little Big Planet, the similarities are superficial and at the very least unfounded. 9 is a sprawling, fast-paced dark fantasy. It starts too fast, but it keeps a steady pace and eventually, the audience catches up. Part Matrix, part Dark Crystal, part Toy Story, it's definitely a post-modern futuristic fairy tale for the new millennium. How's that for a sound bite, huh?

In an undisclosed future, deadly machines have taken over the planet, seemingly killing all living things. A misunderstood scientist creates a super-brain machine which inevitably churns out deadly Rube Goldbergian machines, warring with humanity. To save life, this same scientist built nine machines, each imbued with a portion of his soul. The ninth machine awakens with no understanding of this world, stumbles across the other eight machines, and makes a final stand against the re-awakened machine brain to restore life to Earth.

It's rare for an animated film to be so bleak. It's completely refreshing. Shane Acker's personal stamp is all over this film, and it's very clear that this is a personal vision. The characters are interesting; they represent the nine parts of a man's soul, yet have different personalities, strengths, and appearances. Even though he supposedly created the 9 concurrently, the materials used to construct them seem different; additionally, the length of time between the first doll and the last seems pretty ambiguous.

At first, it's hard to get into, simply because it launches into the story when 9 awakens. The reason behind the existence of the dolls isn't revealed until halfway through the film. Up until that point, it's primarily for the enjoyment of the computer generated effects, the bleak, stark apocalyptic world that these tiny dolls inhabit. And when you first see a mechanized robot with a cat's skull and razor claws? Or the pterodactyl made out of knives and scissors? That is some interesting stuff.

Overall, it's a visually stunning achievement in computer animation, and refreshing to see it from a basically independent animation team (i.e. not from Dreamworks Animation, Disney, Pixar, etc.). It's as cute and fantastically frightening as you're liable to see the apocalypse. Oh, yeah, and it has a pretty stellar voice cast: Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, John C. Riley, Martin Landau, Crispin Glover, Jennifer Connelly... All great actors and lend superbly emotive voices to these odd little burlap dolls.

I'll have to give it four crazy-ass flying razor-bird monstrosity things out of five, or four oddly Nazi-ish human oppression turned death-machine fodder out of five.

(500) Days of Summer: A Romance for the Unromantic

2010-01-21T19:00:00.002-05:00

I've been meaning to check out (500) Days of Summer for awhile, and the Lady and I finally received it via Netflix last week. We watched it instead of watching the end of the Golden Globes, and it was pretty decent. I've pretty much always liked Zooey Deschanel, ever since I saw her in Mumford. I liked Joseph Gordon-Levitt when he was on 3rd Rock from the Sun, and I also liked him in Brick, so I'm enjoying his current rise to prominence.

Tom Hansen (Gordon-Levitt) works for a greeting card company. When Summer Finn (Deschanel) starts working there, he develops a crush, and they strike up a relationship. Unfortunately, she doesn't believe in love, and he's falling head over heels into it for her. Told in a Tarantino-esque disorganized fashion, jumping around between the beginning, middle, and end of their 500 days, s he realizes he may have over-romanticized their relationship, and comes to grips with reality versus expectation.

It's a very cute movie, and surprisingly funny. Gordon-Levitt swings wildly between hopeless romantic, heartbroken cynic, exhausted by his lost love, nearly insane from it, and darkly humorous. Zooey is adorable, finicky, and engaging. There's a musical number where Tom sings and dances in the street with passersby in a perfectly synchronized "random dance" sequence. There's even an animated bluebird. The scenes where his younger sister (played by Chloe Moretz) are precious and amusing, where her 12-year-old character dispenses more intelligent advice than his loser friends (and yeah, he seems to only have these two guys for friends). It has a good, moderately happy ending (where the main character quits his crappy job and starts pursuing architecture more seriously), all thanks to the crazy relationship he just got out of.

The costumes and production design was amazing, as well. The story bounced around between the days, always with an intertitle listing the day, and showing a summery-looking scene at the beginning, and a dreary wintery scene in the relationship's decline. In an especially affecting shot, the world around Tom washes out from the real world to a smudgy drawing to nothing but stained paper, with his silhouette remaining in the center of the frame, casting a lonely shadow.

I liked it, it was cute, funny, and despite the wacky musical number and an especially interesting scene showing the side-by-side "reality" and "expectation" of a party, the characters are pretty realistic. It's not really a chick flick, because Gordon-Levitt is so entertaining and Deschanel is just so damn cute. It's also not a bad romance, either. It's not like "Autumn in New York," it's more like "When Harry Met Sally," just with a different kind of nice ending.

I give it four depressed greeting card writers out of five, or four adorable bows in Deschanel's hair out of five.

Terminator Salvation: Little to Salvage

2010-01-20T19:38:00.006-05:00

Let me start off by saying this movie isn't as good as the previous films in the franchise. I would venture to say that Terminator 3 was better than this. I'm a pretty big fan of the franchise, though I never really got into the TV show. Mostly because it departs from the timeline set up by the films. I've also seen the mini-movie Terminator 3-D at Universal Studios. First off, Salvation is rated PG-13, while all the others are rated R. Typically, this tactic is in a futile attempt to draw a larger audience (as R rated films restrict teenage viewers). Featuring Christian Bale as John Connor, Bryce Dallas Howard as Kate Connor, Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright, Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese, and featuring Helena Bonham Carter, Common, and Roland Kickinger as the T-800, complete with a CG-mapped Arnold face.

In the year 2018, the machines (or more accurately humanoid robots equipped with guns) have dominated the world, and the remaining humans either hide or fight back as the Resistance. John Connor, now in his early 30s, is a commander of sorts. Many higher-ups in the Resistance don't believe he's the true prophet, although many people do. He encounters Marcus Wright, a man executed for murder in 2003, mysteriously up and around. Turns out, hey-oh, he's a cyborg! Cyberdine (a subsidiary of SkyNet or some such) harvested his body for science, and genetically engineered him to be mostly machine. There are lots of robot fights, explosions, driving around while robots fight and there are also explosions. Christian Bale uses his Batman voice, and Bryce Dallas Howard's character is pregnant, though never commented on, addressed, or mentioned whatsoever.

There are lots of little nods to the franchise throughout the film. Most of the robots are familiar, and there are loads of new ones (including ones that look like motorcycles, ones that look like sharp eels, and ones that look like humans. One of them even looks like that guy from Avatar, before he becomes a 12-foot Smurf shaman, or whatever. That's a review for another day. Someone also says "Come with me if you want to live!" which is almost always a good line. According to the trivia on the IMDb, even Kyle Reese's Nikes are similar to the ones that the "future" Kyle Reese wore in the original Terminator movie. However, extreme anal-retentive attention to detail does not a great movie make. The first Terminator film was directed by James Cameron, the man who directed two of the top-grossing films of all time, Acadamy and Golden Globe winner, etc. etc. etc. McG directed... Charlie's Angels. You can see where I'm going with this.

Most critics agree that Sam Worthington's performance is one of the best in the film. It's also nice to see Anton Yelchin, whom I primarily know from Charlie Bartlett and Star Trek. Supposedly, Yelchin studied Michael Biehn's performance as the original Kyle Reese to mimic his mannerisms and movements. He gives an intense and heated performance, a teenage boy who thinks he's tougher than he is, idolizes John Connor (his own son, crazily enough), and displays intelligence and intensity without much control. Worthington was an unknown before this film, though he was working with Cameron on Avatar first. Cameron recommended Worthington to McG for the role of Marcus Wright. Between this and Avatar, and the upcoming remake of Clash of the Titans, I expect to see more of him in the future. Bale gives a typical performance, I'm sorry to say. Not that he's awful, or anything. He was just like a dirty Bruce Wayne with his Batman's voice, though it was interesting to see the character of John Connor as an adult. Bryce Dallas Howard gives a decent performance, though her character (or perhaps herself in real life) is pregnant, which I would assume could be a bigger plot point given that it's John's child. However, it's never mentioned, alluded to, or acknowledged in any way. Oh well, I guess.

It's entertaining, though, which is better than nothing. It's worth a rent, and is good for some pretty crazy action scenes, good effects on the machines, and an interesting look at the future that Linda Hamilton spent two movies trying to prevent. I give it three and a half robot heart transplants out of five, or three and a half fake computer-generated Arnold Schwarzenegger robots out of five.

The Shining: Heeeeeere's Terror!

2009-11-03T20:02:00.002-05:00

Over the weekend before Halloween, the Lady and I watched a bunch of horror movies. We were too busy the actual weekend of Halloween to watch anything more than The Nightmare Before Christmas, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. Luckily for me, I can watch a dozen horror movies a day and not have an issue, but unfortunately, somebody I know was having some difficulty sleeping after movies like Funny Games, Saw and The Shining. I've been meaning to watch this film all the way through for awhile, now. I read the novel a few times over the last several years, and I've heard that the adaptation isn't as good as the novel. The interesting thing about The Shining is that it's good on its own merits, separated from the novel. The novel is great, and examines the psychology of horror, and I really enjoyed the treatment of the supernatural, psychic abilities, and ghostly possession.

Stanley Kubrick is a pretty crazy guy. He had a tremendous reputation from the actors that he worked with, and almost every movie that he directed is extraordinarily twisted, creepy, interesting, and well directed. The camera angles are interesting, mise-en-scene well thought out and full of subtle meanings that I can't even remember off the top of my head, and a subtlety of movement (or lack thereof), as well as an extremely interesting use of pacing and editing (jumping from the first day to like a month later, and Jack's slam-cut in the hedge maze).

Jack Torrance (Nicholson) is a recovering alcoholic ex-schoolteacher, who accepts a job as a caretaker for a large hotel during the winter off-season. His wife Wendy (Duvall) will accompany him, as well as his young son Danny (Danny Lloyd), who is obviously a special boy, as the film quickly and clearly establishes. A boy named Tony speaks through Danny occasionally, and he doesn't want to go to the Overlook, but doesn't explain why. They basically move to the hotel at the end of the summer season, before the weather gets cold, and Danny speaks with Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers), an elderly man who is also a psychic, and tells Danny that it's called "the shining." As they live in the hotel, just the three of them, in a gigantic hotel, Jack tries to write a novel, Wendy tries to keep them together, and Danny just likes to be vaguely creepy and ride his big wheel around the hallways. Jack sinks progressively farther into a strange psychotic depression, and it's difficult to tell whether the hotel itself begins providing him with alcohol, or if he imagines the whole thing. Danny begins having visions revolving around room 237, as well as some really creepy twins that show up, the murdered daughters of a previous caretaker. Jack eventually gives in to the anger and alcohol, and tries to murder his wife and son, just as the previous caretaker had (though the last caretaker succeeded).

Kubrick is a great director, which I think I said before. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but it's pretty impressive what he's able to do with pacing, storytelling, and shot composition. This was also Kubrick's first film in which the Steadicam was used, and some of the most iconic steadicam tracking shots in cinema are from this film (mostly the shots tracking behind Danny as he BigWheels around the hallways of the hotel).

I need to read the novel again; I had always heard that there was some dispute with Stephen King that he didn't particularly enjoy the film as an adaptation of his novel. I think the film could have easily gone itno more about Danny and his abilities; as it is, and perhaps because of the young age of the actor, he's a relatively minor character, which is pretty annoying to me. I've always found that King can write some interesting child characters, especially ones that are touched by special gifts that are potentially dangerous and harmful. Also, as far as I know, Danny Lloyd was only in one other movie in his short and young career (also, I've read that he didn't know The Shining was a horror film until he was 17; Kubrick protected him pretty well during filming so he thought he was just in a drama, apparently).

This movie is creepy and scary as hell. It's interesting, and has been analyzed multiple times in terms of any messages it may contain regarding the family, humanity, as well as certain issues like substance abuse (relatively common for King at the time, considering his own problems), and general social concerns Kubrick tends to stick in all of his films. It's strikingly horrible in a lot of ways (n the good way, not bad, but full of horror), and it's definitely a classic that should be checked out.

I give it four big-toothed Shelley Duvalls out of five, or four seemingly slow but apparently psychic creepy little boys on Big Wheels out of five.

Zombieland: Land of the Dead, Home of the Kickass

2009-11-02T19:51:00.002-05:00

Should I try to pretend like I didn't really post in October because I didn't want to flood the blog-o-nets with movie blogs related to horror movies, and I made a conscious decision to back off and blog about them in November, when people usually drop the horror stuff and move on the the happy sappy Sandra Bullock movies and Eddie Murphy catastrophes? No? Well, ok, it was worth a shot.

I did see Zombieland in the theaters a few weekends ago, and remember when I said I was looking forward to it, hoping that Adventureland would serve as some sort of prequel? Well, unfortunately, it wasn't, but it did have that Eisenberg kid in it, and he doesn't even get eaten by zombies. Oddly, he did get bitten by a werewolf in Wes Craven's Cursed, which was just on TV the other day and it was pretty not great, but oh well. That's not my original point. Which was... right! Zombieland. It was directed by Rueben Fleischer, and written by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick. It stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin. There's also a pretty amazingly awesome celebrity cameo, and thats pretty much it for the cast. Everyone else is zombified. It's a pretty good zombie film, and a good comedy. It's not really an homage/parody like Shaun of the Dead, but it's still a pretty interesting movie, especially considering its minimalist cast and snappy dialogue. Usually, Zombie films aren't known for that sort of thing.

Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has a list of rules that have kept him alive during the zombie plague. He doesn't survive because he's strong, or brave, or awesome, but because he's an overly cautious nerd. Tallahassee (Harrelson), on the other hand, is a brash, burly, Southern zombie killing machine, who survives purely because he loves to kill zombies. Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin) are con-artist sisters who find themselves mixed up with the two guys. They go by towns instead of names, but they end up crossing much of the country together, killing zombies, getting into shenanigans, and stealing from each other. According to the film's plot, zombies were created out of some sort of mutated mad-cow diseases, a mad-human disease, if you will. Possibly a subtle nod to the merits of vegetarianism? There's plenty of zombie mayhem, people being chased and then eaten, as well as plenty of zombies getting shot, hit with cars, having pianos dropped on them, being cut up and sliced up, all the good stuff that we love to see in a zombie film. The film climaxes in a totally insane battle in an amusement park, where a thousand or so zombies swarm around our heroes, forcing them to try and kill the population of a decent sized school.

While it's not quite as good as Shaun of the Dead in the respect of a comedy or a zombie film, it definitely does its best to hit that mark. It's not a bad movie, by any means. It's wholly entertaining, gory, sometimes shocking (in the sense that sudden appearance of a frightening zombie from nowhere), and an interesting take on the idea of surviving the zombie apocalypse. The idea that a skinny kid like Columbus could survive as long as he did (seemingly one of five normal humans left in the United States) because of his list of rules, caution, preparation, and above all, cardio, is quite interesting.

I've long said that if something like the zombocalypse ever actually happened, the nerds would really be the ones to survive the longest. While we never see Columbus being a fan of zombie movies, or knowing a lot about them implicitly, he is able to build up his list pretty quickly, without dying while compiling it. He has some good advice on there, too, and is pretty practical. I haven't finished reading my Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks yet, but I would imagine that there are a few of these same tips inside (like Cardio, Check the Back Seat, etc.). Apply these instructions in a practical, zombie-filled setting!

Is this film still in the theaters? It might be. If it is, it's worth checking out. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's after Halloween. Honestly, that's just the time of year that people that don't watch horror movies want to watch horror movies. In reality, they're always good all the time. Especially in fall, where it gets dark early, it's the perfect time for spooky movies. Or, not, whatever, I can't force you to watch anything!

I give Zombieland four totally insane celebrity cameos that I'm trying hard not to spoil for everyone out of five, or four kick-ass dog-loving NASCAR-watching gun-toting zombie killing machine Woody Harrelsons out of five.

X-Men Origins Wolverine: Like A Videogame, But You Don't Have To Play

2009-10-08T19:54:00.002-04:00

I have to preface this post with a tiny fact that may or may not be slightly embarrassing: I'm a long-time comic book fan. I read X-Men first, so it always has this weirdly special place in my entertainment lexicon. So of course I was pretty geeked out and nerdily overjoyed when the original X-Men trilogy came out. Of course, Wolverine came out of that the clear favorite (and was actually designed to do so, based on the amount of screen time and plot attention he was given in the first three movies), and was ranted his own movie, focusing entirely on him running around in tank tops and snarling, cutting things up and generally being feral and apparently highly appealing. According to the Lady, at least. How distressing! But understandable?

In case someone may have been living in a cave or under a rock or in a coma or something, Wolverine is a movie spin-off from the popular X-Men movie trilogy released in the early to mid Oughties, starring Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Liev Schrieber as Sabretooth, Danny Houston as William Stryker, Will.i.am as John Wraith, Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson, Lynn Collins as Kayla Silverfox, Taylor Kitsch as Remy LeBeau, Kevin Durand as Fred Dukes, Dominic Monaghan as some random technopath, plus a bunch of other semi-familiar faces in different forms, like a young Cyclops, Emma Frost, and a few other mystery mutants in a crazy mutant jail. In general, it's pretty much a crazy mix of some great characters, some disappointments, some oddities, but is generally entertaining and action-packed.

There's probably a lot of spoilers in a general plot outline, but I'll try to keep it informative and spoiler free. Basically, the film explores the origins and youth of Wolverine, one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and arguably the character given the most attention in the original X-men trilogy. We see a lot of the reasons why Wolverine is the way he is, what happened to his memory, what happened with Weapon X, why he and Sabretooth hate each other, and why he has claws. In the mid 19th century, young James Howlett is a sick young man, who is close friends with the groundskeeper's son Victor. After an altercation, James is traumatized by witnessing his father's death, wherein sharp claws of bone pop from his hands, and he kills the groundskeeper. James and Victor run away, using their feral mutant powers in every major American war starting with the Civil War, going all the way to Vietnam. Their healing factors make them age very slowly (or basically stop aging once they get to young middle age). They're recruited by Stryker, who builds a small army of mutants. James leaves after it takes a turn he doesn't like, he quits. Six years later, James is living a quiet life in Canada, when his old life catches up to him. His old friends in the military group come back into his life, and he meets some new mutants (like Gambit and a young Cyclops).

The Weapon X program uses his rage against him to perform experiments, and he's forced to face his own brother, except for when he doesn't. In the end, he must face their ultimate weapon, and Stryker himself, which works out the only way that it can.

I'm probably going to rate this with one star higher than it really deserves, just because I'm such a giant comic book nerd, but I think it'll be forgiven. Won't it?! Yeah, it will.

I like these kinds of movies, pretty much in spite of their many, many flaws. Cinematically, it was average, and basically as best as they get for action movies. It was directed by Gavin Hood, who has directed some (seemingly) decent movies, though I haven't seen them (Rendition, Tsotsi). It was written by some guys, too, I guess, and also based on a long and storied history, which they ignored about 65% of for this movie. Certain characters were just plain wrong (like Deadpool, though Reynolds's Wade Wilson was basically spot on). Certain people's powers were wrong, seemingly: Cyclops looked like he had heat vision (parts of the buildings he destroyed with his optic blast thingies were on fire), and Emma Frost just had diamond skin (a relatively new power for her character; she's primarily been a telepath). Anyway, that's all nerd-trap nitpicky crap. The fight scenes were pretty awesome, and certain characters were basically perfect. Gambit seemed pretty spot on, and surprisingly, the show-stealer was Kevin Durand as Fred Dukes, who was never one of my favorite characters, but holy crap did he make the Blob incredibly entertaining. I was even surprised at how not-terrible Will.i.am was as Stryker, considering this is his first movie. It's also an interesting choice for a famous musician like that; I like to see that some celebrities are comic book nerds, too.

One of the things that I simultaneously love and hate about the influx of comic book movies in the last decade is how popular these characters are becoming. For some strange reason, nerds are pretty protective of their nerdy obsessions. It's the same thing with video games. It almost seems unfair, like they haven't "earned the right" to be interested in these kinds of things. Seriously, though? It's good for the comics industry in general, and I'm glad to see that they're doing so well. When I was in high school, Marvel was bankrupt, and now they've bounced back with Marvel Entertainment, and were recently bought by Disney, which should open a lot of new doors.

I kind of hope they make a second Wolverine movie, if only because they can start including some characters that haven't been included as of yet. It's almost ironic that a film featuring the entire cast of the X-Men wouldn't feature major interesting characters, and they have to be introduced elsewhere. I'll have to compile a list of characters I'd love to see in a movie. Or at least characters to be treated correctly; it sounds nitpicky, but there's a lot of canon (yes, canon) that has ben established with these characters, so to see stuff ignored and misrepresented is pretty annoying.

In general, I would recommend this film to at least rent. I even bought Daredevil because I'm such a comic book nerd, so that might say something about why I bought X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I give it three half-naked and sometimes completely naked feral Hugh Jackmans running around out of five, or three strange and sometimes completely insane brotherly relationships between super-powered animalistic warrior maniacs out of five.

The Life of David Gale: We Get It, You Hate the Death Penalty

2009-10-06T19:01:00.003-04:00

In 2003, Alan Parker directed a movie that looks like it was made in the 1990s. It's the worst thing about this movie; for some reason, to me, it looks like it was shot ten years before it really was, and I can't put my finger on why. He also directed Angel Heart in the 1980s, which looks like it was made in the 80s, but set back in the day. Other than that, this film is a pretty fantastic crime-based sort-of-courtroom journalist drama starring Kevin Spacey as the titular character, a former professor on death row for murder and rape, Kate Winslet as a reporter with a dumb name sent to interview him the last three days before his execution, and Laura Linney as David Gale's best friend, and the woman he raped and murdered.

It's a pretty intense film with some unique twists and some surprises, though the Lady will attest that I called the basic gist of the final twist in the first half. It's a one-of-a-kind plot, and almost seems like something that could really happen. Most of the characters are interesting, the plot moves along swiftly, there are various twists, and there's lots of sex and violence, which is what all courtroom/crime dramas are really missing. Sure, there were some small pieces of the puzzle that I didn't guess, but the overall pucture itself was something I managed to figure out within the first, oh, I dunno, 45 minutes?

The Life of David Gale follows Bitsey Bloom (told you that she has a dumb name), a reporter who is inexplicably called in to interview David Gale, a former Professor of Philosophy and head of the department of philosophy at the University of Austin. His marriage is strained, but he loves his young son. His friend Constance runs the local Death Watch, a protest group opposed to capital punishment and specifically the Texan proclivity for executions. He's accused of raping a grad student who was recently expelled due to poor attendance (apparently), and his life starts to fall apart. His wife leaves him, he descends into alcoholism, he loses his position in the university, his position in Death Watch, and virtually everything that means anything to him, except for his Harvard sweatshirt and his son's stuffed animal, which I believe is referred to as "Cloud Dog." Bitsey meanwhile gets closer to the cryptic truth through her interviews with David, and she and her intern Zack hang around the rural Texas town where the prison is located, and dealing with David's odd, podunk-ponytail lawyer Braxton Belyeu (Leon Rippy). As Gale's execution date looms, Bitsey gets as close to the truth as she's allowed until the right moment, where the truth is revealed at the last possible minute just before the credits roll.

Apparently, this film was generally received negatively. It's certainly not because of the acting or directing, both of which are stellar and better than average, respectively. Perhaps it's the heavy-handed and nearly ham-fisted way the plot treats the opposition of the death penalty, and the exceptionally brutal manner in which the main characters treat it and react to it. While no clear resolution is ever really reached, there is a sense that Gale's initial point (that the system is flawed, and tries to prove that an innocent man can indeed make it through the awfully disastrous system) reaches some sort of attention. There is also the sense and idea that capital punishment can't be stopped, as Bitsey is sent on a wild goose chase from her interviews with Gale to prove he's innocent, only to have him meet his execution date anyway.

It certainly is suspenseful, and the twists are excellent, and Spacey and Linney are as good actors as they ever were. Spacey and Winslet's characters have a semi- Hannibal/Clarice relationship going, so strong that I expected him to greet her in the same manner when she first arrives at the prison. It never really does explain why he chooses/requests Bitsey to interview her, and I half-expected her to be involved in the twist, in some bizarre and vaguely-connected way. As far as we know, he just chose her because she refused to give up her source on a previous trial, even though her source was a supposed child molester (or something). The basic point is, she was part of the overall plot and twist after all, but probably not the way you think.

I don't think the film is terrible, unlike Roger Ebert, who usually has a pretty good handle on these kinds of things. It's kind of a strange bummer of a movie, though, but it apparently works out for the best in the end. Kevin Spacey plays the role well, swinging between the tacit and professional David Gale on death row, emotionally strained with his execution looming, and the chaotic, intelligent, angry, and very often drunk past version.

I give The Life of David Gale three drunken street-rants about Aristotle and Plato and various other philosophers with amusing insights into their fashion sense as well as their beliefs out of five, or three stupidly-named and vaguely annoying yet persistent and emotional journalists out of five.

Smart People: They're Kind of Dumb

2009-10-04T16:38:00.002-04:00

To a certain extent, I take offense to the general idea of this film, that smart people are also kind of dumb. Not in the academic sense, but in a more common sense area, especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships, like with family, romance, and friends (technically, none of the characters in the film have "friends," even briefly or peripherally introduced). Actually, the more I think about it, the more accurate it is. The smart kids are always the social misfits and the weirdest, most awkward humans imaginable. Nevermind, this movie is pretty accurate and definitely on point, though it's occasionally a little on the nose.

Released in 2008, Smart People was directed by Noam Murro and written by Mark Poirier. It stars the ever-awesome Dennis Quaid, the constantly surprising Thomas Haden Church, the reliably entertaining Ellen Page, and friggin' Sarah Jessica Parker. That wasn't a good "friggin'," by the way. Oh well, she doesn't detract from the other performances or anything, so that's good. Dennis Quaid plays Lawrence Wetherhold, a somewhat awkward, pretentious, and overly intelligent English Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Ellen Page plays his daughter, a compulsive overachiever and social misfit, too intelligent for her own good and aware of it, who has stepped in to fill her late mother's shoes. Thomas Haden Church plays Chuck, Lawrence's adopted brother, who is the most normal character in the film (though he doesn't have a job, any real interpersonal relationships outside the family, and no real ambitions whatsoever). Sarah Jessica Parker plays Dr. Janet Hartigan, who treats Professor Wetherhold, and is a former student of his, and takes it upon herself to play the romantic interest to Lawrence. Their relationship is pretty random, and nonsensical, and whatever, nothing makes much sense. I guess it's not supposed to?

The Wetherhold family is extraordinarily dysfunctional, and virtually every member is adrift, lost, and unable to adequately cope with pretty much anything that happens to them. Lawrence is an English professor who is universally disliked by most, and can't be bothered to remember any of his student's names. His wife passed away some time before the movie takes place, and he's finding it impossible to adequately deal with it. His daughter Vanessa is insane over getting into college, and assuming the matronly role, and even helping her father come up with the title of his latest book, which he's having trouble publishing. His adopted brother Chuck shows up out of the blue, which is sort of lucky, because Lawrence hurts himself trying to hop the fence to get his papers out of his impounded car, and his vague sense of "who gives a crap" seems like it should be a positive influence on the household, and maybe it does, but it isn't anything earth shattering. Sarah Jessica Parker shows up as Dr. Janet Hartigan, a former student who treats his injuries, and they begin a very strange romantic relationship, complete with a pregnancy. Apparently, everyone learns a valuable lesson, and we see Professor Wetherhold becoming a better father, Chuck becoming still the same old Chuck, and evidently everyone else improves in some meaningful way.

Nuno Bettencort, lead guitarist from Extreme provides the majority of the soundtrack, which is thankfully very far from Extreme, both in terms of the band name and the actual adjective. It helps the film find that weird balance of funny, depressing, awkward, and engaging. There are less than a dozen actors with lines in this movie, if I remember correctly, which definitely isn't a bad thing. It's an incredibly dialogue-driven film, with smart, witty, and sometimes awesome dialogue. It's low-key, subdued, subtle, and while its characters are often times incredibly pretentious, overblown, and utterly insufferable, the film itself manages not to be.

It's a pretty decent movie for a first time director, and a first time writer. It must have struck some good chords somewhere, because while he's not Brad Pitt, Dennis Quaid is a pretty big name actor. And even though she looks like a foot, Sarah Jessica Parker is a pretty big star. Luckily, the last few years have been pretty good to Thomas Haden Church, so he's getting pretty popular, and thusly a decently sized star. And of course, cute li'l Ellen Page has been a dynamo lately. And they're virtually the only members of the cast, and so there's a fair amount of star power for a couple of first-timers. Also, I'm jealous. I mean, it's not an incredibly dynamically directed film, but it doesn't need to be. And it's very smartly written, and the direction enhances the inherent timing of the dialogue and situations. I'm pretty impressed in general.

I recommend this film for anyone that's related to English professors, wants to be one, is one, or is just really snobby with English. Dennis Quaid is surprisingly and like-ably unlike-able, and Church is good as always, understated and with some spot-on timing. I also have to say that this is the first time I was annoyed by an Ellen Page character, so kudos to her for that. She's usually too adorable to be annoyed by. Her character is basically Juno, with none of the cool stuff. Still big words, still an odd attitude, but largely insufferable. I suggest checking it out. I give this film four vaguely out-of-shape Dennis Quaid characters (in which Quaid wears a fat suit) out of five, or four sleepy Thomas Haden Churches wearing red onesies with the butt flap hanging wide open for anyone walking by to cover up, so maybe cover your shame, man.

Extract: We Should Bottle Mike Judge

2009-09-30T20:00:00.003-04:00

Everyone knows Mike Judge, or at least they should. He created Beavis & Butt-Head. Enough said? Hardly! He also created King of the Hill, and directed the cult classic Office Space. Unfortunately, working in an office, little gags and jokes from that movie (as well as the American version of the television show The Office) has permeated the conversational minutiae of daily life in an office. Luckily, he always does extremely entertaining work, so I can forgive him making it so ridiculously popular films that they almost become annoying.

I doubt that Extract will be like that. It was good, and funny, and had a great feel to it. However, so did Idiocracy, and unfortunately, that movie didn't do as well as I think it could have. It didn't even really become a cult classic like Office Space did. I do think that he's getting somewhat more confident as a filmmaker, however, and I sincerely hope that he puts a few more films out now that this is King of the Hill's last season (I think; right?). I don't want him to create another series (didn't he already try with that terrible Goode Family thing? That sucked and got cancelled, right?); I don't want him to create another version of Office Space, either. I think it only became a cult classic because it was very identifiable with the increasing number of disenfranchised young people working in white collar type jobs. This may be a blending of old mentality and new mentality, as the film is set in a factory, but mostly told from the perspective of the founder and owner, Joel Reynolds (Jason Bateman).

Joel Reynolds (Bateman) began his extract company when he figured out some chemistry stuff to be able to extract food flavors. He currently runs his factory full of misfits, and is dissatisfied with his life and his marriage (to Suzie, played by Kristen Wiig). He hasn't had sex with his wife in a month, and his workers are all idiots, complainers, or losers. He's trying to sell off his company to General Mills, but an accident at the factor puts those plans on hold. Due to a series of odd, Rube Goldberg-ian events, one of his employees (Clifton Collins, Jr.) loses a testicle, but intends to settle. Hearing about the accident, con-artist and drifter Cindy (Mila Kunis) shows up to talk him into suing, with the intent to steal the money. He also gets some very bad advice from his best friend Dean (Ben Affleck), when Joel expresses some romantic desires for Cindy. Dean suggests they hire a gigolo to seduce Suzie, so Joel doesn't have to feel guilty about having an affair with Cindy. Needless to say, things get complicated, strange, but wholly amusing.

The film stars a plethora of pretty familiar faces. Jason Bateman headlines with Ben Affleck supporting him surprisingly well. Kristen Wiig is pretty fantastic as his wife Suzie, who is also dissatisfied with their current lot in life, but Joel is too caught up with work and his own annoyance to notice. Mila Kunis has been in everything lately; I even saw her in a preview for the new Denzel Washington movie The Book of Eli. I'm not sure if it's a bad thing, because she's not intolerable, but I think she's going to have some problems if she tries to do too much. Dustin Milligan is the dim-witted gigolo that they hire; apparently he's on the CW or something, though I've never seen him in anything before this film. Gene Simmons is a personal injury lawyer (and pretty great), and J.K. Simmons is Joel's business partner, who can't even bother to learn the employees names. Mike Judge himself even appears as a union organizer who sounds suspiciously like Hank Hill. The supporting cast is pretty excellent, and they play their parts well (annoying characters are really annoying, dumb characters are really dumb, etc.).

Mike Judge has a knack for putting the everyman into lead roles, and making it interesting. By all accounts, Joel is a somewhat whiny, somewhat self-absorbed business owner, but Jason Bateman plays him in such a way that he's engaging and interesting. Of course, I'm sure he was written that way, too (by Mike Judge). It's kind of difficult to explain why the movie is enjoyable, which is a problem I have with Office Space, as well. It amuses me and entertains me; it's well written, subtly directed (nothing flashy happens because nothing needs to, we just need to be present for the interactions of characters and their dialogue), and is pretty well acted. I was even entertained by Ben Affleck, which hardly ever happens.

I feel kind of bad, I don't really have much to say about the movie, other than it's worth seeing. However, it has a caveat. If you liked Idiocracy, you'll probably like this movie. If you just liked Office Space, you might like Extract, but, then again, you might not. They're not really the same. I guess it's not really the same as Idiocracy, either, but... it's different, though. Like I said, it's hard to explain.

Let me give it a quick shot. It has a lot of timing. Does that make sense? A lot of the humour is related to the lines and delivery, but also relies pretty heavily on the timing of those lines, and the timing of reactions. It's very subtle. It's highly enjoyable. Also, when Brad the dumb gigolo talks about being "in love" with Suzie (yeah, it happens), there's this sweet, slow piano music that plays in the background. Even when he has to talk about it like five times in a scene because he's so dumb, the sweet romantic piano music is still there.

It may not be worth a theater viewing (since there are no explosions or anything), but it's definitely worth a viewing, however you want to do it. I give it three and a half testicle destroying arbitrary factory accidents out of five, or three and a half David Koechners running up to your car while you're coming home from work, trying to bore you to death, or annoy you to murder, apparently.

Surf's Up: Penguins Surfing? It's Better Than It Sounds

2009-09-28T18:00:00.001-04:00

I love kid's movies, most of the time. I think the only one I've written about so far here is Bee Movie, which wasn't exactly the best. I generally prefer films produced by Walt Disney's frozen head, but occasionally, other production companies will send out a film that's pretty decent, and occasionally, will even be better than expected. I haven't seen Sony Pictures Animation's first film Open Season yet, but it looked halfway decent. Their newest film, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs is out now, I believe, and it looks like it could be good. We'll have to see; I was pretty impressed in general with Surf's Up.

The Lady brought it over last week, since she loves it. I wasn't sure what to think; I had some preconceived notions of penguin movies, from Happy Feet. I think the producers had a feeling about this, since there are some references to the fact that there's no singing, no dancing, etc. They almost over-reach with that, at times, putting in lots of hip, cultural references and a soundtrack filled with Green Day and popular music. It features a pretty stellar cast, starring Shia LaBeouf as the main character, Cody Maverick. Jeff Bridges stars as Geek, Zooey Deschanel as Lani, Jon Heder as Chicken Joe, Mario Cantone as Mikey (a shorebird talent scout), James Woods as Reggie Belafonte (a Don King-esque promoter sea otter), and Diedrich Bader as Tank Evans, an utterly fantastic character. I was particularly impressed with almost every scene between LaBeouf and Bridges, and I'm honestly curious if they recorded their scenes together.

Presented like a documentary, Surf's Up follows Cody Maverick, a young rockhopper penguin living in Shiverpool, apparently a penguin village in the arctic. His dream is to become a surfer, after a visit from the legendary Big Z, emperor penguin and king of the surfers. He eventually is discovered and goes along with a crew of penguins (and a Chicken, who surfed Lake Michigan) to a surfing competition on Pen Gu Island, apparently the best place to surf in the world. There he meets Tank (Bader), a giant king penguin, who won the title of top surfer from Big Z when Z supposedly died in a surfing accident at the last big competition. Cody is ambitious and full of heart (as per usual with these family movie heroes), but his skills are sort of lacking. He eventually learns about the true meaning of surfing, finding the joy in it, having fun with it, and learning that being number one isn't the best thing, the most important thing, and there are plenty of wacky shenanigans, sight gags, interesting characters, great voice work, and that ever-present and extremely interesting framing as a documentary.

Also, these three little penguin kids keep showing up, being interviewed briefly by the film crew (assuming they're penguins themselves, though to a certain extent, I keep thinking of them as being humans). They're pretty adorable; one of the kids keeps going into the water to "drown," so he can be saved by Lani (Deschanel). It's pretty much the cutest thing ever. As per usual with these kinds of anthropomorphic family movies, they always put fun little jokes in the periphery of the movie. Lani is a lifeguard, and so instead of one of those little red buoy things they used on Baywatch, she as a cute little squid guy, and he alternatively looks bored, amused, interested, etc., as she talks. Also, Jeff Bridges's character totally whizzes on Shia LaBeouf's character (because he stepped on some sort of sea urchin in a surfing accident). We also get a quick commentary from the pissed-off urchin, annoyed that many of his spines have been broken or are now missing.

The general plot of this movie is pretty similar to family friendly animated films. Plucky hero character with heart, trying to succeed, overcoming obstacles, sometimes pursuing a career or a path that he should have no real business pursuing (like the rat in Ratatouille, or something like that). There's a father figure, a vague love interest, and a strange, weird, dumb, or unusual friend. The obstacles aren't insurmountable, and after an initial failure, they finally reach the true meaning of what they want, and become better people/penguins/living toys/talking mice/whatever for it.

As I mentioned before, one of the things I'd be curious about is if LaBeouf and Bridges recorded their scenes in the same room together. A lot of their banter and interactions are extremely witty and interesting, and they seem too natural to be recorded separately (or even written that way). I'd like to see them on screen together sometime. I wish that LaBeouf was playing Bridges son in the new Tron movie. Oh well, maybe we'll get to see it sometime.

In general, the film as very cute, entertaining, amusing, sweet, and fun. It was better than I expected, had a lot of odd humour, interesting characters, and some great dialogue. Animated films are almost always good, when they're developed well. I was impressed with the computer graphics, as well, considering the majority of the movie took place in the ocean, with waves, rolling water, and thick jungles. Also, there are cute little Pen Guin natives, that first try to cook Chicken Joe, and then when he gives them squid-on-a-stick, he kind of becomes their leader, I guess? Also, while on the subject, Chicken Joe is a pretty wacky character, and I really like that he surfed Lake Michigan (which is something people actually do, it's not just a joke. There's actually a surf shop on the west coast of Michigan, and I've been meaning to check it out).

I'd recommend the movie if you're looking for an alternative to stuff like Happy Feet. There's no songs, no dancing, just some penguins that want to surf, for some reason. And they do, and it's actually pretty interesting. Also, some famous surfers make cameo appearances, like Kelly Slater and Rob Machado. James Woods is crazy awesome as usual, and there are some really great performances.

I give it four beefy penguin surfers kissing on trophies in their mom's house out of five, or four crazy hippie surfing fat penguins voiced by the awesome Jeff Bridges out of five.

Surrogates: Who Wouldn't Want to Pilot A Robot?

2009-09-26T13:00:00.001-04:00

What would you do if you could buy a robot like you buy iPods and cell phones? What if you could pilot it, immerse yourself in it, and use it like we use online personalities? Would it just be used by those who can't move on their own, the physically disabled? Would it be used by the police force to keep their real selves from being injured? Personally, I would use it so I can jump around and not get hurt. It's probably irresponsible, but it would be super fun.

These are some of the basic issues that Surrogates takes on. Directed by Jonathan Mostow, the director of U-571 and Terminator 3, based on the 2005 comic book series published by Top Shelf written by Robert Venditti with art by Brett Weldele. It stars Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell (Pitch Black, Silent Hill), Ving Rhames, Rosamund Pike (Pride & Prejudice, The Libertine), James Cromwell, and Jack Noseworthy. The film is set vaguely in the "present day," though the comic series is set 50 years in the future from when it was written. The use of "surrogates," remote operated humanoid robots has become commonplace, though it was developed with the intent to help the disabled. The creator of the surrogates, Dr. Lionel Canter (Cromwell) is wheelchair-bound, and uses a variety of surrogates to get around, after being fired from the robotics company that manufactures the robots. There's also this underswell of humans that find the idea of surrogates disgusting, and immoral, etc. They live on reservations that they create for themselves, sequestering themselves away from the others, preventing any surrogates from entering. Their autonomy is accepted by the government, and there's a tentative treaty in place. This human activist group is lead by "The Prophet," played by Ving Rhames, dressed kind of like George Clinton from the P-Funk All-Stars. Think this is complicated? This is just the backstory.

It's a crazy, convoluted, intense little ride, but it's entertaining. There are excellent sci-fi moments, and like the best sci-fi stories, it makes a very convincing and simultaneous subtle and glaring social and political commentaries.

Agent Greer (Willis) is a fine FBI agent, working with another fine officer, Agent Peters (Mitchell). They're called to a scene where two units are offline, and they can't reach the users. Turns out, a weapon exists that can fry out a surrogate, and the backlash kills the user. One of the victims was a sexy blonde unit, piloted by a pretty fat (and now pretty dead) guy. The other was piloted by a college student, the son of Dr. Canter, the inventor of Surrogates. Greer and Peters both pilot their "surries" on the job, to keep themselves safe from harm, and also to use the advanced and near-superhuman abilities of these machines. Greer comes very close to the culprit, and almost dies by the mysterious weapon. Now finding himself without his buffer system, he needs to get out into the real world to put all the pieces together, track down the killer, and uncover a conspiracy that can only be pulled off in a world where you can be anyone you want at virtually any time.

I'd like to read the original comic book, so I can see how things are different. Just from reading about the plot on Wikipedia (yes, I know), it seems that there are superficial differences, and the overall theme is the same. For some reason, it looks like they made the plot even more complicated for the movie, which is pretty crazy complicated (though I admit I called most of it at the last minute, not too long before the reveal built up. I liked the idea in general, and the little touches they threw in that they didn't have time for. There is one scene with a poster for football, with the silhouette of a player holding a severed surrogate head. It makes you think: What would the use of surrogates really do for the professional sports world? For the acting and modeling world? They do explore the idea of surrogates used as soldiers, with thousands of banks of live soldiers (in uniform) chilling out and hooked up to the system.

It also has a Big Brother/A Scanner Darkly feel, in that the government is able to tap into the feeds of users, and even remote access them to shut them down in times of danger. There are rows of video screens, displaying surrogate feeds, and thousands of people watching and monitoring to report illegal activity. It's (interestingly) supervised by a human guy, without a surrogate. He's basically the Comic Book Guy-type character, but pretty interesting in that he likens himself to God, and literally has access to the surrogate network (which is apparently interconnected like the internet, so in some ways it's technically possible to access all surrogates on Earth).

The production value on the film is pretty intense. Initially, the whole outside world has something of a plastic, artificial feel to it. All the characters are supposed to be surrogates, so they have very clean, polished skin, but there's really no issues with realism. Apparently, in this world, they've bypassed the "uncanny valley" effect, the idea that robots created that look extremely realistic somehow look less comforting, and start to look creepy. Bruce Willis especially looks interesting, smooth-faced, plastic, full head of Conan O'Brien-like hair. He looks more like John McClane when he's unplugged, and of course, as our hero, actively uses the surrogate technology, but also feels vaguely ill at ease with it, and especially in his personal life, feeling that he hasn't spent any time with his own wife without the use of surrogates in years.

It's very much a classic sci-fi film in terms of tone, and theme. It's a little bit I, Robot, it's a little bit 1984, and it's a little bit of contemporary social networking and online personality immersion. There's a little bit of Philip K. Dick in here, too, so I think that was a pretty heavy influence on both the creators of the comic book series, and the guys that wrote the screenplay. It's engaging, thought-provoking, sometimes violent, wildly fantastic, and utterly plausible.

I recommend this film to anyone that likes good old-fashioned (albeit modern updated and actiony) sci-fi. I give it four armless Bruce Willises getting hit by trucks out of five, or four rastafarian Ving Rhames human-promoting revolutionary political activists out of five.

The Virgin Suicides: Surburban Life Is Just Awful

2009-09-22T21:34:00.003-04:00

I watched this one awhile ago, but have been too busy, what with my day job and real life, etc., to actually write about it. So now, in the ultimate snackrifice, I will write about this film today, rather than watching all of the scintillating new television shows available to me tonight. Wait, there's nothing good on Tuesdays, and the Lady is busy, so... here you go. I mean, um. I really want to?

Back in the early 90s (1993 to be obsessive), a young, hip upstart of a novelist debuted to the world with The Virgin Suicides. In 1999, the young, hip offspring of a well-respected and prolific Hollywood film director figured it would be a pretty nifty film to start off with. That crazy director was Sofia Coppola. Yes, the very same cousin of Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman! It is truly amazing. Well, okay, the movie is decently well-directed, and word on the street is that she adapted the film into a passable screenplay. The film stars James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, and a bunch of other people whose names I can't remember. It's okay, thought. The characters are important in what they represent, and the actions that they take. Okay, fine, since you're all such sticklers, the film also stars A.J. Cook, Hanna R. Hall, Leslie Hayman, Chelse Swain, Danny DeVito in a memorable and extremely tiny role, a really young Hayden Christensen, Giovanni Ribisi as the narrator, Anthony DeSimone, Lee Kagan, Robert Schwartzman, Noah Shebib, and Jonathan Tucker. Whew. See? That's why I didn't want to get into it.

Set in early-1970s Grosse Pointe Michigan, the film is of particular resonance to me, because I've lived in Michigan for the last ten years or so. The 70s was an important time for the country in general, and the Detroit suburbs was a pretty interesting place at the time. The plot focuses on the Lisbon family, Ronald and Sara, and their five mysterious and deeply disturbed daughters. Kirsten Dunst is sort of the main daughter, Lux, and her sisters are Mary, Cecilia, Therese, and Bonnie. The story opens with the attempted suicide of Cecilia, the youngest girl. This only proves to increase the allure, mysterious draw, and legend of the girls to the various boys of the school and the neighborhood. It's through their eyes and thoughts (and the narration of one of them, grown up), that we experience the events. The Lisbon parents are slightly awkward and extremely overbearing, which causes some extreme lashing out by the girls.

Inexplicably, all of the girls end up committing suicide (hence the title). Cecilia is the first, succeeding after her failed first attempt, and by the end of the film, the other girls follow after, in decidedly suburban ways. Lux is the second-to-youngest, but by far the most rebellious, sexual, ambitious, and probably the craziest. As shown below, the neighborhood boys become obsessed with the girls, due to their unnatural beauty, the mystery inherent in their parents authoritarian rules and restrictions, and their eventual deaths. The story also features short scenes like interviews, where at least one of the boys, grown up, is still searching for answers, and still discussing them.

I'd like to read the book, and I've gotten into the habit of watching films first when I can, and then reading the book. I may have mentioned this before, but I figure, why be disappointed in the movie because it's not as good as the book? It's literally always the case. I might as well enjoy the film with no expectations, and then enjoy the book even more when it's so much better than the film. It's the most win-win situation ever, and I'll fight for that opinion! Yeah, that's what I thought, tough guy. Don't hit me!

James Woods and Kathleen Turner give stellar performances as the continually flustered and way-out-of-their leagues parents of five precocious and intense young daughters. Kirsten Dunst is pretty impressive as well, in an odd sort of way, even though I'm not generally a big fan of hers. Josh Hartnett is pretty hilarious in an extremely terrible wig, and a tiny little young Hayden Christensen cracks me up. Giovanni Ribisi is probably the second-best male in the film, next to the always engaging James Woods. Most of the girls, ironically, were relatively forgettable, in my opinion as a viewer.

I was mostly trying to figure out what was really so terrible about their lives, and why they felt their only real out was suicide. They were basically kept prisoner to a certain extent for a good deal of the film, but the parents were understandably distressed by their daughter's suicide, and probably didn't have good coping mechanisms back in the 1970s. Lux's behavior is far more extreme than I would assume rational, which I guess is the prerogative of a 14 year old girl. The boys' shared obsession with them is somewhat understandable, but only up until their collective deaths. Five sisters killing themselves almost simultaneously is worth a little closer look, but up until then? Yeah, sure, they were pretty, but come on. Pretty people are all over the place! I guess young teenage boys are more susceptible to that sort of thing. Also, they did see Lux having random sex on her roof with random people, which I guess would be pretty memorable.

In general, I found the film to be particularly disturbing, adequately directed, written well (though that's probably due to the source material more than anything else), and acted with a special sort of suburban subtlety that only increases the disturbing aspects of the story. I give it four Danny DeVito cameos out of five, or four utterly suburban teenage girl suicides out of five (they included hanging, asphyxiation by car exhaust in a garage, head in the oven, and pills). Fun for the whole family?

State of Play: Let's Co-Opt the British Some More

2009-09-14T20:48:00.005-04:00

Back in 2003, BBC One aired a television serial about journalism, political scandal, intrigue, murder, and conspiracy. So six years later, America decided "Hey! That was pretty good. But y'know what will make it even better? Let's condense it by one-third, stick Russell Crowe in it, make it set in Washington, and also put Ben Affleck in it." And you know what? They could have been wronger, but they were pretty wrong.

That's not to say that the film wasn't entertaining, because it was. Some interesting stuff happened, and it was trying very very hard to be suspenseful. It doesn't have a completely mind-blowing twist, or even a series of twists, but it's obvious that they put a lot of effort into being as taut as they could manage. It does have a surprisingly stellar cast, though (except for Ben Affleck). It stars Russell Crowe in the main role of reporter Cal McAffrey, Helen Mirren as his editor Cameron Lynne, li'l Benny Affleck as Congressman Stephen Collins, Rachel McAdams plays Della Frye, a modern media reporter (i.e. blogger) that gets partnered up with Cal, Jason Bateman as Dominic Foy, a strange li'l informer, Robin Wright Penn as Congressman Collins's wife Anne, and Jeff Daniels as Rep. George Fergus. It was directed by Kevin Macdonald, and he previously directed the acclaimed The Last King of Scotland. You'd think that there would be something more redeeming about this film with a cast like that, right? Well, it's only decent, but not awful.

General plot time! A redheaded lady apparently commits suicide by jumping in front of a metro train. Turns out, she was having an affair with Congressman Collins. She also was the lead researcher for some crazy hearings that Collins was heading, something about private militias, or mercenaries, or something. A very prominent and rogueish reporter Cal McAffrey gets word of the scandal, because A) he works for a friggin' newspaper, and B) he was roommates in college with Collins (apparently, even though Russell Crowe is almost ten years older than Affleck). So, as per usual movie-style, McAffrey decides that he's the world's coolest detective, and tracks down the entire case and breaks it wide open like a cheap piñata. Also, Helen Mirren is a pretty bad-ass tough as nails Editor, and Jason Bateman is this strange, odd little bisexual club owner or something, with some vague connection to the victim. Jeff Daniels is a pretty ruthless and surprisingly evil Representative. There's a lot going on here, and I think that some threads get lost along the way, but overall, it remains entertaining throughout.

One of the biggest issues that occurs with these kinds of films involving reporters is how they've become the new detectives. Do actual reporters really do that? Pore over case reports, go running around the city, "interviewing"/interrogating people? The Lady found that to be rather improbable, as well, and she's pretty swift. However, it's interesting in that these types of films are almost neo-noir-y, in that there are a lot of dark alleys, sort-of-shootouts, in-depth investigations, conspiracies, and intrigue. Are journalists the new private investigators? It's not the worst thing I can think of, but it still seems relatively unrealistic. But, then again, I'm not a reporter, so I don't really know how things work. It might be the most realistic thing, ever. Who's to say?

I was also really tired when I watched this movie, so I wasn't really paying attention to thing like mise-en-scéne, colors, sets, camera angles, editing techniques, or costumes. There may have been some carefully planned and subtle color work in play (though everything seemed vaguely gray, but who knows). In general, though, I'd say it was fairly entertaining, and it was worth the exchange of some money and some time.

I'd say it is worth checking out if you're so inclined. Russell Crowe is always good at becoming the character he plays. It bugs me about actors like Nicolas Cage and Kevin Costner, that I'm always extremely aware that they're Nicolas Cage and Kevin Costner playing a role. Rachel McAdams is adorable as usual, Ben Affleck is basically pretty blergh, and Helen Mirren is awesome. I give it three hardcore detective reporter crimefighters out of five, or three weepy congressman Ben Afflecks out of five.

Adventureland: I'm More Excited for "Zombieland"

2009-09-12T16:41:00.003-04:00

Everyone's worked at a job they hated. Some people do that for a few years when they're teenagers, or just out of college, and some people do it for longer. Adventureland is the story of James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg), a college graduate that's having difficulty finding a real job to get ready for graduate school. The only job he can get ends up being as a carny of sorts, working in the Games for the local summer amusement park Adventureland. There are shenanigans, that kind of boring girl from Twilight, and some people from SNL. Ryan Reynolds is there, too, but his character's kind of a jerk. It was written and directed by Greg Mottola, the director of Superbad. One thing about the guy, he knows how to write up some awkward and basically intelligent characters (with the exception of a few, but that's normal).

Also, one of the things that I can't help connecting in my mind is the upcoming film Zombieland, which also stars Jesse Eisenberg, and also has -land in the title. Part of me really hopes that Zombieland is an unofficial sequel. If I see that kid in a "Games Games Games" t-shirt in the zombie movie, I just might lose my shiz. Unfortunately, the anticipation of a totally different movie with a similar title and one shared actor. The movie isn't terrible, but it isn't fantastic. It has some good moments, some good lines, and some interesting characters, but that's pretty much it.

But wait, there's more! Well, not much more. Plot-wise, it's relatively complicated, actually. James Brennan (Eisenberg) has just graduated with his Bachelor's degree, and is now gearing up for a big summer abroad before going to grad school. Unfortunately, his parents (Jack Gilpin and Wendie Malick) are having financial difficulties, and won't be able to help him with the trip, or really for graduate school. He finds himself virtually unemployable, and ends up working in Games for Adventureland, a summer theme park in the town. There, he meets some girls, some weird guys, the cool but kind-of-a-jerk maintenance man (played by Ryan Reynolds), and eventually makes his plans for the fall, which he then departs from drastically by the end of the movie to be with Kristen Stewart's character. It has some great cameo appearances by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, who play the proprietors of the park, and are relatively crazy. He also gets to hang out with his childhood friend Frigo, who punches him in the nuts a lot (and is played by that kid from the phone commercials that never wants to use "old minutes," you know the one).

It's a bit more dramatic than I was anticipating based on the previews, and I didn't really hear too many opinions or see many reviews for it. Granted, I rarely seek out reviews (which seems odd, since I sort-of write reviews several times a week), but still. It was a pretty low-key release, with few actors that can really be considered top-level, but it was pretty entertaining.

Now, she isn't the most terrible thing in the world. She's ... just kind of bland, and doesn't really seem to jump into any character she's playing. Luckily, I think people tend to cast her in roles that are kind of plain and relatively boring, so she doesn't really have to work all that hard. For some reason, I felt myself noticing a lot of her mannerisms, and they're annoying as all hell. She does the same hair-fixing motion when she's distressed, or hungry, or amused, or drunk.

The film feels very much like a high-school coming-of-age story, but virtually all the characters are in their 20s, at least. Maybe because Jesse Eisenberg's character is a virgin, but still, it's an unusual sensation. Maybe it's some sort of commentary, that we never really grow out of the crappy jobs, the weird relationships, the uncertain futures, and the money troubles of youth. Even his parents are having problems, and don't seem to have their own clearly defined directions. Or maybe I'm overthinking it. It's probably just a dumb little movie about a weird job at an amusement park.

Basically, it's decent, but only if you really want to see it. I don't know if it would be worth it to spend money on. Luckily for me, the Lady's sister had rented it, and we filched it, so, score! Free movie, right? I'd say it's amusing, more dramatic than it initially seemed, and kind of made me think about how interesting and rewarding my life actually is. I'd give it two and a half punches in the nuts from that phone commercial kid out of five, or two and a half blank, soulless and empty staring eyes of Kristen Stewart out of five.

Zack and Miri Make A Porno: Um, Enough Said?

2009-09-09T20:23:00.003-04:00

Fifteen years ago, this fat comic book nerd from New Jersey got a bunch of his friends to be in a movie that he filmed in the convenience store in which he worked. That movie was Clerks, and it was actually pretty impressive and awesome. It was well written, decently acted, considering virtually everyone on screen had never acted before, and it became a cult classic. He turned that popularity into a movie franchise based around the exploits of Jay and Silent Bob, played by his friend Jason Mewes and himself. And what does he do with that kind of clout? He makes a movie in which Seth Rogen, a chubby, hairy man, becomes the average joe's porn star. The film also stars Elizabeth Banks as Miri, Jason Mewes as a porn star, Craig Robinson as Zack's co-worker that serves as the porno's producer, and Traci Lords and Katie Morgan playing porn stars, which is a real stretch for them.

Seriously though, this movie is extremely decent. It's an interesting idea, bizarrely executed, and was fascinatingly cast. I'm of the firm belief that this entire film was imagined, produced, casted, written, shot, and acted while completely blitzed on pot. I haven't enjoyed a comedy about the porn industry this much since Trey Parker and Matt Stone came out with Orgazmo. Like my review of Inglourious Basterds, this film is a pretty big departure for Kevin Smith, in terms of principal cast, the fact that he doesn't star with Jason Mewes as Jay and Silent Bob, the location (Monroeville, PA instead of New Jersey), and that it doesn't take place in the supposed "View Askewniverse" as far as we know. Despite the new directions (except the general content/themes are pretty standard Kevin Smith fare), the film performs admirably. Get it? It's kind of a sex pun. Trust me, it's funny.

Zack and Miri have been friends since grade school. They live in an apartment together in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, and they share a car. They both work crappy jobs, though we don't actually see Miri doing hers. Zack works in a coffee shop. And all their utilities are getting shut off. They go to their 10th high school reunion, only to find that everyone's still kind of annoying, and that Miri's high school crush Bobby Long (played by Brandon Routh) is gay, and in a relationship with Brandon St. Randy (Justin Long), a gay porn star. This gives Zack a brilliant idea: to solve their money problems, they decide to make a porno, convinced that at least the several hundred members of their graduating class would want to buy it. They manage to recruit a stripper, a random guy named Lester, a bacheolor party entertainer, another random dude, and Zack's friend and goalie for their hockey team to help them make their movie. Along the way, Zack and Miri find that they may or may not have feelings for one another, which makes filming this bizarre, half-formed and insane porn movie exceedingly complicated. And there's a lot of weird sex, a lot of crazy and hilarious dialogue, and a lot of wacky shenanigans.

This film is definitely not family-friendly. There are almost 300 f-bombs dropped during the course of the film, plenty of simulated sex, naked butts, naked breasts, and ... well, all I can say is I feel bad for Jeff Anderson's character. He's the cinematographer, and he has to get pretty close and personal with shooting some of the scenes. It's refreshing to see Jason Mewes as a character other than the foul-mouthed drug dealing Jay character, and he's surprisingly good in his role as Lester. After so many Judd Apatow films, it's also nice to see Seth Rogen in a film with a little bit of a different flavor. It does share a lot of similarities with the typical Apatow fare, though, but to be honest, Kevin Smith has been doing it longer. I think. Yeah, that's probably right.

It's immensely hilarious, raunchy, and strange. The dialogue is pretty classic Kevin Smith, too. What Quentin Tarantino can do with his bizarre crime stories, Kevin Smith can do with wacky romantic raunchy comedies. The characters are interesting and engaging, and are relatively round, surprisingly. Even some of the secondary characters are like that. Craig Robinson's character grows quite a bit throughout the film, and both Zack and Miri make some real progress in their personal lives.

I give the film three and a half awkward and tender porn-star love scenes out of five, or three and a half "please don't say shit covered" scenes out of five. You'll get it when you watch it.

Inglourious Basterds: Spelling Nazis Beware, They'll Kill You, Too

2009-09-08T21:36:00.005-04:00

Seriously, everyone. Please, please, for the love of crap-in-a-hat, stop spelling Inglourious Basterds "correctly." I don't think it's too much to ask. We shouldn't have to put a sic next to a movie title, right? Regardless, if you haven't heard of it yet, Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino's newest film, based basically on the premise of "Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France..." It's pretty typical of Quentin these days, and is somewhat formulaic in the vein of Kill Bill (due to chapter breaks with amusing little titles). It doesn't really star any of the typical Tarantino cast, though, which is interesting and refreshing.

It also stars several natural German and French actors, speaking their native languages, which is also extremely refreshing. I'm sick and tired of movies portraying different countries as speaking English with vague accents, or worse, random British accents. I'm sorry, but Reichminister Goebbels wouldn't have spoken in English with a German accent, he spoke German. So it's good that they do it that way. And the few transitions they make into English seem a little ham-handed at first, but actually make sense for the scene. It stars Brad Pitt, B.J. Novak, Eli Roth, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, and Omar Doom. It's one of the largest casts that I've seen Tarantino use, though I get the vague sense that we don't get to know any one character particularly well, which is ok, I guess, because almost all characters are Nazis or Nazi-killing American Jewish soldiers.

This film is extraordinarily gory and violent. That is extremely awesome. As for plot, it's pretty simple. Do you hate Nazis? Well, the Basterds do. They're a collection of American Jewish soldiers and several German/Austrian soldiers, one an immigrant, and one recruited from a prison (he was imprisoned for killing 13 Nazis, which Brad Pitt's character Aldo Raine considers "amateurish" but with promise). They basically kill lots of Nazis. They scalp them, too. The Nazis give Lt. Raine the nickname "Aldo the Apache," and they give Sgt. Donny Donowitz (Roth) the nickname of "The Bear Jew," because he is huge, fairly hairy, and also kills Nazis with a baseball bat, which everyone knows bears are wont to do. Simultaneously, Shosanna Dreyfus (Laurent) is on the run from the Nazis, and especially Col. Hans Landa (Waltz), the "Jew Hunter" responsible for killing her family. She owns a cinema in France, and when a young soldier/actor, Pvt. Fredrick Zoller (Brühl) fancies her, he convinces Reichminister Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) to premier their big movie there. This catches the eye of the British intelligence, as well as the Basterds, and of course Shosanna. They all basically decide they want to blow up the cinema in order to kill a large number of Nazis, including Goebbels and Hitler himself. Oh, and Mike Myers plays a British General working with Churchill.

They kill lots and lots of Nazis in extremely bloody, gory, gratuitous, and amazing ways. I probably laughed at inappropriate places, too, but there's something about Quentin Tarantino's timing, pacing, and dialogue taht entertains and amuses me, even amidst a shower of blood, brains, bullets, etc. Especially amidst all that disgusting human offal and detritus.

Tarantino makes this film simultaneously the most accessible film he's made in a long time, as well as the most shockingly controversial and violent. It stars some really big actors (like Pitt and the crazy little cameo by Myers), features some incredibly talented and prominent German and French actors, but also is entirely based on extreme violence against Nazis. Of course, its a touchy subject for a great number of people, with good reason. It's somewhat unusual in the timing, as well. it has the feel of a reactionary film, and seems like it's in response to the war as if it happened just a few years ago, instead of sixty.

It may be shallow, but on e of my favorite parts of the movie was Pitt's crazy weird American accent. He mispronounced virtually every foreign word that he came across, as well as most of the English ones. It's also immensely long, at two and a half hours. It's worth it, and entertaining every second. I haven't seen Tarantino dialogue done more in French and German than in English, and it translates surprisingly well, and very little is lost in the subtitles and strange pacing of German. Of course, it literally translates well, because, duh. I mean that it's still obviously Tarantino dialogue, despite the different language.

It's also surprisingly historically accurate (for the most part). There are a lot of little nods and notes to the German cinema and its history. You may not know, but the war was a great boon for their film industry, and in many ways, it wouldn't exist in the same state as it does now without the propaganda films that Goebbels produced during the war. It was also a great way to keep the German citizens informed, pacified, and used as a recruiting tool. The meta-film that is created within Inglourious Basterds is basically what would have happened if Tarantino was making movies during World War 2. Even the posters on display in the lobby are modernized, which I found amusing. Film was very much used as a weapon during the war (over there and over here), and it's used as a trap very effectively in the plot of the film. It also serves as a vague propaganda film on its own, though fifty years too late. It glorifies the actions of the British and American military, vilifies the Nazis without victimizing them, and gives very little justification to the actions of either party.

It's a pretty fantastic movie, but it may make you nauseous. The Lady was awfully queasy for a few hours afterwards, but she enjoyed it regardless. I give it four sacks of Nazi scalps out of five, or four extremely angry, bat-wielding ginormous Jews out of five.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Unforgettably Excellent

2009-09-03T20:25:00.004-04:00

Last year, that tall guy from How I Met Your Mother starred in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which he also wrote. It co-starred Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Paul Rudd, Russell Brand, and Jonah Hill, and there are definitely some shenanigans going on. It was directed by some dude I'd never heard of before, Nicholas Stoller, but that's ok. It's one of those movies that doesn't need Kubrick or Welles, it just needs someone to point the camera at the funny stuff that's happening. There's nothing wrong with a decent movie that relies primarily on awkwardness, great dialogue, and interesting songs sung by two characters. Also, there's a sex competition. Yes, you heard me. It is just as awesome as it sounds. Also, it was produced by Judd Apatow, so it automatically falls into the crazy category of Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin.

I greatly enjoy these kinds of movies, where virtually every line is something you kind of want to quote to other people. Sometimes it gets annoying (like when every moron that you bumped into wanted to yell "Yeah, baby!" after seeing Austin Powers), but it can be good, too. The music and songs are pretty decent, too. Segel's character is a musician, writing songs for a (decidedly terrible but incredibly apt parody) crime show starring his girlfriend, the titular Sarah Marshall, played by Kristen Bell. He's trying to write a Dracula musical. Seriously! It's pretty awesome. I am bummed out that the only spin-off from this movie is Get Him to the Greek, with Russell Brand and Jonah Hill. I wish I could see the real Dracula musical. I demand that it be produced! I demand it!

Peter Bretter (Segel) is a pretty talented dude, who works as a composer for Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime, a crime show parody based on shows like CSI: (which also co-stars William Baldwin, in a spot-on David Caruso parody). His long-time girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Bell) co-stars on the show, though he starts to feel unimportant and uncomfortable in the spotlight. She breaks up with him at the start of the movie, leaving him naked and vulnerable (quite literally). His step-brother Brian (Bill Hader) tries to cheer him up, but he is only vaguely comforted by random sex with strangers. Eventually, he escapes by going to Hawai'i, to a hotel that Sarah talked about often, where he meets Rachel (Kunis), a cute and adventurous customer service/front desk worker at the hotel. They get close, while Sarah shows up at the hotel as well with her new boyfriend Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), a completely ridiculous musician. There are basically lots of shenanigans involving sex, ex-lovers, new lovers, songs about Dracula, Jonah Hill making Peter feel awkward, making Aldous feel awkward, and then an insane scene where Sarah and Aldous try to out-sex Peter and Rachel. Also, Paul Rudd is a surf instructor named Chuck, or Kunu (which means Chuck in Hawai'ian). It's funny.

Okay, so there's some nudity. Okay, so there's a lot of nudity. Yes, most of it is Jason Segel. Yes, it is full-frontal. It ... It is a pretty awkward scene. Harrowing stuff. What nightmares are made of. Not really, but seriously. I had to close my eyes. Luckily, it's at the beginning, so if you can get through that, you'll love the rest of the film. Segel is surprisingly talented in virtually every way. He's a better actor than you'd expect, he's a much better musician than he seems, and he wrote the film entirely by himself (according to the credits, at least), though it's possible that there were some ad-libs and improvisations from the other actors, all of whom are talented. It's also surprising to see Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis in this kind of screwball sex comedy, where both actresses had previously been on relatively wholesome television series prior to this. Also, most Americans didn't really know who Russell Brand was at this point.

It's a hilariously entertaining movie, but a bit thin in terms of general plot, but that's acceptable. It's not often that films like this have real, thought-provoking plots or deep, rounded, incredibly developed characters. It's not really the point of these kinds of movies. The point is to forget about whatever dumb stuff is going on in the real world, and just laugh your stressed-out ass off for an hour and a half. Check out the special features, too, the commentary is great, and the line-o-rama and gag reel are worth checking out.

I give the film three awkward full-frontal nude shots out of five, or three hilarious and surprising sex competitions out of five.

Coraline: It Is So Creepy Oh My God

2009-08-31T21:22:00.004-04:00

So, did you ever watch The Dark Crystal? If you're a little younger, how about Mirrormask? Well, somewhat like Mirrormask, Coraline is a dark fantasy film written by Neil Gaiman. Like the Dark Crystal, it has puppets and whatnot, and it is so creepy you guys, holy crap. I picked up the film with the Lady over the weekend, and we (by which I mean I) were ecstatic that it had a 3D version complete with little paper glasses with the Coraline logo on it. I have Neil Gaiman's children's book that the film is based upon, but I haven't actually finished it as of yet. There are some differences, I hear, like the inclusion of an entire character, seemingly designed to make the titular character's journey less solitary. Coraline was directed by Henry Selick, who had previously directed Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas and Monkeybone. It features the voice talents of Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, Ian McShane, Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French, and Dakota Fanning as Coraline. It's a classic example of the modern fairy tale, and is extremely, insanely creepy.

Coraline Jones is an only child to parents who work from home, but are very busy working anyway. Apparently, they're both writers of some sort, for a gardening magazine or catalogue, even though neither of them garden. They have recently moved into a new house/apartment, a surprisingly large home split into three apartments, shared by two elderly former Burlesque dancers, and a surprisingly agile and fit old Russian dude, who trains mice for a circus. Coraline finds a tiny door in one of the rooms, and with a key from the kitchen, gets it open, only to find it bricked up. In the middle of the night, Coraline is lead back to the door by one of the mice from upstairs. It isn't bricked up anymore, and she crawls through a tunnel into a virtual copy of her home, complete with different versions of her parents. Her Other Mother welcomes her warmly, with food and good cheer (her real mother doesn't cook, and is relatively bitchy). Coraline enjoys her time there until it all gets weird and creepy, like when her Other Mother wants her to sew buttons onto her eyes. The Other Mother kidnaps Coraline's real parents, and she must find them (and the souls/eyes of three ghost children) and escape the Other Mother's web of terror.

The tunnel (as you can see above) reminds me of the tiny door tunnel into the mind of John Malkovitch in the film Being John Malkovitch. Except this tunnel doesn't lead into the mind and memories of a creepy, weird (but talented) actor, but instead to a sort-of-mirror world (it's only sort-of because things aren't physically backwards). It is just as weird, off-putting, and vaguely creepy as Being John Malkovitch though, and it even has some underpinnings of genuine terror. I can't believe that this movie was marketed to children! There's a lot of awful stuff that happens, and it all happens to children. Seriously, there's some messed up stuff that happens here. The Other Mother turns out to be not good at all, no sir, and she does fascinatingly horrible things to those Other versions of Coraline's friends and father. All in the interest of finding a child to call her very own, which she'll ultimately tire of and (or choose specifically for the purpose of) ingesting their essence.

Like all fairy tales, all the great signs are there. A lonely and misunderstood child, parents that are too busy to pay attention to them, relocation to a new place, lack of friends, and a pathological curiosity. When she decides that she may be better off without he real parents, she quickly discovers that her new replacement parents are great on the surface, but that's only because they need to hide their uncompromising horror. These fairy tales always make the child perform tasks and accomplish goals in order to be reunited with her family. Once that happens, they're always extremely grateful to have their parents/loved ones back in their lives, and have a greater appreciation for them.

This film also features some pretty amazing and often times truly breathtaking work in terms of stop-motion animation, as well as the use of 3D. This is the first stop-motion animated film to be shot entirely in 3D, and is also the longest stop-motion film to date (at nearly two hours). It has a similar presentation to the other stop-motion films to have garnered serious attention, like Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and The Nightmare Before Christmas, as well as James and the Giant Peach. The characters have that unique creepy-fantasy sense to them, as well as a uniquely bleak and fantastic set. It's a pretty huge accomplishment, and must have taken an extremely long time to complete.

It's an amazing fantasy film, as well as an impressive accomplishment in stop-motion animation and 3D filming technology. It's dark, creepy, strange, bizarre, beautiful, funny, and wonderful. It's worth picking up. Try the 3D version at home; it's a little headachey at times, but overall it's a nice effect, and really brings something extra to the experience.

I give it four creepy doomed ghost children out of five, or four creepy acrobatic and possibly irradiated Russian upstairs neighbors out of five.

Pan's Labyrinth: Creepy Kids Fantasy is Creepy As That Creepy Kid In Class, You Know The One

2009-08-27T20:14:00.004-04:00

Longest blog title ever! Well, you know that kid, right? Not the one that smells kind of funny, no, not that kind of creepy. Kind of like the kid that's always saying really bizarre stuff, while his dead, terrible eyes stare vacantly into the distance, fixed upon a fiery horizon that calls only to him with a thousand wailing mouths. Whoa, ok, maybe not that creepy. Well, yes, maybe a little bit that creepy. It's pretty creepy for a children's movie, and I probably haven't seen a family movie this overtly dark and disturbingly fantastical since The Dark Crystal came out the year I was born.

Released in 2006, this Spanish-language dark fantasy was directed by Guillermo Del Toro and released under the Spanish title El Labertino del Fauno, though in English they released it as Pan's Labryinth. I have to say, I really hate spelling "labyrinth." Oh well. I'll have to do it a lot during the course of this post, so I suppose I'll have to get used to it. The film stars newcomer Ivana Baquero as the main lead, a young girl named Olivia whose mother marries a Spanish captain. Captain Vidal was played by Sergi López i Ayats, a Spanish actor known primarily for his comedic films. Ofelia's mother was played by Adriana Gil, and Ofelia must save her mother and unborn brother from an unknown evil, with the help of the Faun, played by Doug Jones. He's basically the best part of the film, playing the Faun and the disturbing and horrible Pale Man. Doug Jones is well-known in the cinema world for his amazing costumes and long, wiry, extremely creepy way of portraying these characters. He absolutely disappears into both roles, and he barely seems human in movement or action.

Ofelia and her mother are summoned by her mother's new husband, the mysterious and dangerous Captain Vidal. Carmen, Ofelia's mother, is extremely pregnant with the captain's son, Ofelia's half-brother. Ofelia has a vivid imagination, and begins seeing a fairy around the woods. The beginning of the film tells a fairy tale about a princess from the Underground Realm that escapes to our world, is blinded by the sun and weakened to the point of death. The King of the Underground Realm hopes she will return. On the Captain's homestead, Carmen gets sick, and Ofelia hears some murmurs of a rebellion against the government (the film is set in post-Civil War Spain), and wanders into the woods, following the fairy. She finds the ruins of a maze, where she meets the Faun, who claims she is the Princess from the fairy tale that opened the film. She must accomplish three tasks before the full moon to save her mother and return to her "real home," the Underground Realm. She must face various dangers, demons, and generally strange things. Also, it turns out that Captain Vidal is kind of a sociopath, who tortures a rebel, and when the doctor euthanizes the captive, Vidal kills him, as well. Carmen dies delivering Vidal's son, and the Faun advises her to take him to the labyrinth, where she can return to the Underground Realm with the blood of an innocent. Her decision proves to be the final test, but will she make the right choice? Of course, I know what she does. But it's a new-ish movie, so I'm not telling!

The film is epic and fantastic. It blends the fantastic elements of traditional fairy tales with the backdrop of the 1944 Spanish Civil War, although I'm admittedly pretty ignorant of that entire situation. It is a very dark and foreboding tale of magic and mystery, which is a welcome change from all the Disneyfied fairy tales that everyone's so used to. It's much more reminiscent of the traditional, original Grimm versions of fairy tales, full of death, war, fear, and unstable families. The characters are interesting, relatively well-developed, and have clear intentions and personalities that make their motivations clear. I have issues with subtitled films to a certain extent, but not in a really negative way. Unfortunately, since I don't speak Spanish, I spend half my time reading the subtitles (which I like, because I like to read). However, I have to focus on the words, so I sometimes feel like I'm missing some subtle nuances in character reactions, movement, expression, not to mention mise-en-scéne and camera work (which in Guillermo Del Toro films is usually quite fascinating and often times breathtaking). On the other hand, I really don't like dubbing the English track, because I feel like I'm missing the original actors emotions and subtleties of voice (which I can still discern, even though it's not English). There's give and take, in general, and benefits to watching a film in its original language with subtitles, or dubbed over in English, but lacking the actual actor's vocal subtleties. It's kind of like reading a book that was written in another language. Overall, it would be best to be fluent in whatever language it is, so nothing is missed. Unfortunately, I'm just fluent in English, so my options are limited.

Anyway! I really enjoyed this film. I grew up with stuff like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, so it's no small wonder that a deeply disturbing and dark magical realistic film like this would catch my eye. It's visually stunning and arresting, with amazing special effects, both in terms of CGI and in make-up (by the amazing Doug Jones). It's worth four creepy, eyeless, child-eating monsters in dark hallways out of five, or four evil, sociopathic, manipulative Spanish Civil War Captains out of five.

Empire Records: Best Viewed on Rex Manning Day

2009-08-26T20:53:00.004-04:00

Seriously, if you haven't seen Empire Records, where have you been for the last fifteen years? Ok, so fourteen years. Released in 1995, Empire Records was met with generally negative reviews, though most people I know absolutely adore it, and watch it annually. It features a smorgasbord of young actors, many of whom went on to bigger (or at least other) things. Featuring Anthony LaPaglia, Liv Tyler, Debi Mazar, Robin Tunney, Ethan Embry (credited Ethan Randall), and Renée Zelwegger, and Maxwell Caulfield, among others. Several of the actors are now on CSI: Miami, oddly enough, and Ethan Embry would star in another popular teen coming-of-age film in Can't Hardly Wait. There are also a few people you've probably never heard of, but that's totally ok. Also, there's lots of alternative music on the soundtrack, which used to be cool.

It's full of romance, angst, attempted suicide, robbery, existential quandaries, the pain of employment, the pain of unemployment, the inherent problems within the corporate system, drugs, drug addiction, the pressures of college, the fear of expression, the fear of rejection, parental issues, and also there is music. Oh, right, Rex Manning shows up, a washed up fictional pop star, whose fan-base is inexplicably old considering he was supposed to be popular in the 1980s, at most 14 years before this movie takes place. It's pretty inconceivable that all of his fans that arrive would be middle-aged, but it also may be an exaggeration of youth, imagining "older" people as older than they actually are. Plus, Rex Manning was pretty obnoxious, so maybe he perceives his fan-base as older than they really are, to really reflect his washed-up status of used-to-be-pop-star.

The plot is relatively simple, and takes place over the course of a single day. Empire Records is a well-liked and well-established independent record store, full of young characters of differing backgrounds and musical opinions. It's owned by Joe (LaPaglia), a hip manager that either used to be a drummer in a real band that never made it, or just really enjoys the drums. The characters represent the tortured artist, the vaguely literary rebel, the overly ambitious college-bound student, the angsty and suicidal goth-punk girl, the promiscuous girl, the punk, the shoplifter, and of course, Rex Manning. The livelihood of the store is threatened, when the employees find out that the owner wants to turn it into a popular music store chain, and they all deal with their interpersonal problems throughout the day. That night, they throw a big party to raise money to save the store, which is accomplished in a relatively easy and seemingly unimportant manner.

The actual plot seems to take a back seat to the relationships between the characters, how they interact with their environment, each other, the customers, and Rex Manning. Pretty much all of the main characters openly mock Rex Manning, except for Corey (Liv Tyler) who wants him to be her first sexual encounter, and Gina (Zellwegger) who actually ends up having sex with him (in the copy room). This is obviously a point of contention between the two characters. I still don't fully understand why Corey expects it to be a magical experience; she romanticized Rex from her girlhood as a celebrity, but she puts all of her hope and faith into this one encounter, though we never really understand what she plans on doing after that. She then unjustifiably freaks out on Gina for having sex with Rex (though the very idea of sex with Rex Manning on Rex Manning Day should be punishment enough) because she's stressed out due to unfair academic expectations set by her parents, as well as her addiction/dependence on speed to get enough studying done to get into Harvard (though she does receive an acceptance letter to Harvard during the course of the story). Also, a girl tries to commit suicide the previous day (or some undefined period of time before the day the film takes place), and shaves her head when she arrives to work. Also, a kid calling himself Warren Beatty shows up and tries to rob from the store, and then wants to work there, later bringing a gun to the store. Also, some other stuff happens?

Overall, the movie is extremely entertaining, if somewhat nonsensical. It follows some traditional dramatic patterns (as the Lady so graciously pointed out to me), or even Aristotle's definition of tragedy (plot, theme, character, dialogue, rhythm, spectacle), though it's fair to say that for the most part, all movies have these elements within them, simply twisted about for other means. Anyway, the point is, it's a pretty important film for Generation X. It deals with all the important issues of youth, yet all of their problems are resolved with money in the end (even though it allows them to remain independent, and away from the crushing oppression of a national chain corporation). I recommend checking out this film, especially if you were young and/or a teenager in the 90s.

I give it three out of five Rex Manning Days out of five, or three fake funerals for the bald-headed suicidal girl out of five.

The Hitcher: Don't Pick Up Hitchhikers

2009-08-24T22:49:00.004-04:00

Hey, have you ever wanted to see the bad Replicant from Blade Runner drive around and try to stab that kid from Soul Man? Well, you're in luck, because that's basically what happens in 1986's The Hitcher. My last post was about remakes, and this movie was remade recently, as well, though I've never seen it. I'll have to check it out sometime soon and write about it.

This film stars C. Thomas Howell and Rutger Hauer, and some random other people (including Jennifer Jason Leigh, how wacky is that?). Jim Halsey (Howell) picks up John Ryder (Hauer) on a rainy night as he delivers a car from Chicago to San Diego, and he quickly finds out (quickly as in the first ten minutes) that Ryder is a psychopath and murderer, and has already killed the last person to pick him up. Jim literally boots him out of the car, and finds himself chased around the highway by this crazy serial killer, and the trail of blood and bodies start pointing to Jim, much to his chagrin. Then things get a little nutty. Okay, it doesn't really get that nutty, but some crazy stuff happens pretty consistently.

I like horror movies like this. We don't know much about these characters, and we don't really need to. Jim is a young kid just trying to get to California, because that's what kids in the 80s want to do. The John Ryder character isn't really given any motivation whatsoever for his behavior, and is purely a sociopath, killing for the joy of it. He pursues Jim so relentlessly because he had the courage to fight back and kick him out of the car, and Ryder seems to feel that Jim is a worthy adversary. In addition to just trying to kill him, he carves a bloody swatch across the highway, which leads to Jim's arrest for the murders (because Ryder's bloody knife is found on Jim's person). There are loads of car chases, and plenty of Rutger Hauer being pretty menacing. Also, C. Thomas Howell's character vomits out of sheer terror quite frequently, which is interesting. The Lady always complains that characters in movies don't seem to react naturally to extremely stressful situations (i.e. terror-vomiting), so I'm sure she'd be pretty satisfied with how this movie handles it.

The film also acts as a study in irrational human behavior. There's no real reason that Ryder should act the way that he does; he's a non-person, without any real identity, and thrives on the chaos that he creates. In Jim he finds a worthy opponent, someone who not only fights back, but genuinely seems capable of stopping him and restoring balance to the anarchic situation. Jim also finds himself acting as a criminal himself, taking two police officers hostages of sorts, trying to get the truth out, trying to get justice. He's also framed by Ryder and forced to go on the run, watching everyone he comes in contact with be killed in front of him by the ruthless and ever-present Ryder.

The fact that Ryder is clearly older, 40 when filming this, and C. Thomas Howell is 20 (literally, they were both born in '46 and '66, respectively, and the film was released in '86) is an interesting coincidence. There may be some subtle and possibly unintentional commentary on the modern "responsible" youth and the increasingly erratic and chaotic generation that came before it. When Ryder was Jim's age, it was the '60s, where things were more free, liberal, and the road movies of that era (like Easy Rider) were about existential wandering, sticking it to the man, etc. Now that it's the 80s, that aimless wandering and rebellion has taken on a sinister turn, resulting in violence and unchecked aggression, rather than civil disobedience and political dissent. Jim, a product of this decade, is bewildered and confused by Ryder's actions, though he continues to be drawn into them, unwittingly participating in this perverted twist on the road movie.

Or maybe I'm overthinking it, and taking it a bit too seriously.

I'll have to check out the remake they did a few years ago. They also made a sequel in 2003, starring C. Thomas Howell reprising his role as Jim Halsey, with the time between movies being literal time (basically, though not quite). I'll have to check them both out, and see how they compare. Given the state of remakes (and random, crappy sequels made 15 years later), I'm sure they'll both be terrible, and not in the excellent way that this version of The Hitcher is terrible. I still give it three puking and scared teenagers out of five, or three barely tolerable Jennifer Jason Leighs out of five.

The Last House on the Left: Not A Terrible Remake

2009-08-24T20:47:00.003-04:00

Back in the 1970s, an unknown crazy dude named Wes Craven was like, "Hey, man. I've got some groovy ideas for a movie that will scare the pants off of teenagers. I bet that if I make this movie, I can basically become a household name in horror. Man, that would be cool." And so he did. That first movie was called The Last House on the Left, and it was a slasher, horror, rape-and-revenge movie that completely blew the people smart enough to get it away. It wasn't a critical success, and isn't as well known as his later work (*cough*Nightmare on Elm Street*cough*Scream*cough*), but when I was twenty, I watched it for the first time, and I was like "Whaaaaaat."

So, as Hollywood is wont to do, they waited thirty-seven years (whoa, I just realized that, holy crap) and made a not-quite-as-good-but-not-as-bad-as-the-Texas Chainsaw Massacre-remake film with a lot more useless backstory and character development. It doesn't feel as gritty or real as the original, and not enough time was spent on the actual vengeance, and too much time was spent giving the characters completely useless and rarely referenced histories. For example, we spend several minutes of the film being made aware that Mari, the daughter (played by Sara Paxton) is an avid and quite talented swimmer. Who cares, right? It's barely relevant. Also, the parents (played by Monica Potter and Tony Goldwyn) are hinted at having something of a strained marriage (in the very beginning), but it's completely useless and doesn't actually mean anything at all. We also get too much story on the villains, a strange group of criminals (played by Garrett Dillahunt, Joshua Cox, Riki Lindhome, and Aaron Paul), who share a complicated and vaguely (though for the most part literal) family relationship.

For those of you who don't know, the general plot is as follows: Too much backstory on the Collingwood family, Emma, John, and Mari. Mari is an overachieving swimmer who was deeply affected by the loss of her older brother (again, doesn't matter). Emma seems to be a teacher of some kind? I think? And John's a doctor. They go on vacation, or for a long weekend, or for no reason to their cabin/lake house/second home, the titular last house on the left. Mari goes to visit her friend Paige that works in the town (played by Martha MacIsaac), and she's pretty much the catalyst of all the crazy stuff that happens. When Paige and Mari are hanging out at the store, the son of a criminal that gets picked up on his way to jail by his brother and his girlfriend shows up to buy/steal stuff, and then invites them back to the hotel room to smoke weed. The criminals show up, kidnap the girls, bad things happen, blah blah blah. After doing the bad things to the girls, the criminals end up going to Mari's house (as it's the only one around after Mari makes the car crash), and eventually Emma and John find out what their temporary houseguests did (when Mari shows up mostly dead on the front porch, because she's such a strong swimmer get it), and then go on a crazy rampage to exact their harsh familial vengeance on them, but it doesn't last long enough for me.

Basically, in my opinion, the original was a lot better. There's far less character development, which works for horror movies. All we really need to know is some basic information, because it's likely that these people will be dead within an hour. We need to know that Emma and John are parents, and that Mari is a teenage girl, and that makes it crazy awful when the bad guys rape and supposedly kill her (and really kill her friend). The original is actually also a remake, of an Ingmar Bergman film released in 1960 titled Jungfrukällan, set in 14th century Sweden, where a farmer and his wife must exact revenge on herders that rape and murder their daughter. I haven't seen Jungfrukällan yet, but I assume it's pretty intense, as Bergman is pretty crazy. The parents are much more disturbing in their revenge acts, which they have time for because they didn't waste half the movie talking about Mari's dead brother and love of swimming, etc. This remake played out more as a thriller with vague horror undertones than a true horror film.

It seems to me that all these horror remakes are missing some fundamental aspect that was present in their original versions. It's hard to put a finger on, but I've seen a lot of these remakes, and none of them are as good. It's like when they make a movie from a book. Horror films from the 70s and 80s had that little bit of something extra. Maybe it's the lack of computer-generated images (which there isn't much of in Last House...), or a different notion of pacing and suspense. Or maybe they were just ballsier back then, fresh from the carefree days of the 60s, with plenty to say. Nowadays, they just want to make a movie that will sell, going for cheap thrills without any meaning, and trying to dress it up with shaky cameras and vague/poor efforts to develop characters.

This movie is just okay, and not too great. I recommend seeing the original Wes Craven version, and you probably won't be disappointed, and you'll probably be pretty disturbed, which is exactly why you go see horror movies. It's also interesting in the reversal of traditional roles for slasher films. The normal stuff that happens in horror movies like Friday the 13th happens within the first half-hour, and then a whole new type of slasher plot starts forming when the parents find out and exact their over-the-top and bloody revenge. You can probably skip the remake, unless you're happy with semi-poor remakes that lack all the real spirit of the genre. I give it two useless plot points out of five, or two methodically crazy parents out of five.

Death Note: Seriously Japan, What Is Up

2009-08-18T20:24:00.005-04:00

Hey everyone, this is a big ol' two-movie post! Tomorrow's my birthday, so I'll be otherwise indisposed, so I figured I'd write about two pretty crazy Japanese movies I watched recently. It works because it's really one big long movie that they split in half, so it works out well. The movies in question are Death Note and Death Note: The Last Name, two decently popular Japanese fantasy/horror movies released in 2006 directed by Shyuusuke Kaneko and starring Tatsuya Fujiwara as Light Yagami and Ken'ichi Fujiwara as "L." The films are based on the popular Shonen Jump Advanced manga series of the same name by Tsugumi Obha and Takeshi Obata.

Set in a Tokyo much like our own, law school honor student and all around bored genius Light Yagami finds a mysterious black notebook lying in the street, mysteriously untouched by rain. He picks it up, and discovers that it is a "Death Note," a notebook of a shinigami (a god of death). Anyone whose name is written inside the notebook will die, so long as you have their face in your mind. Light is intrigued by the implications, as he feels the world is rife with crime and corruption. He uses the notebook (with the help of its shinigami Ryuk) to eliminate criminals of all sorts. His actions bring the attention of L, the world's greatest detective. They find themselves face to face, L suspecting that Light is this new criminal "Kira" (a Japanese pronunciation of "Killer"), though he can't prove it. Light is determined to continue bringing criminals to justice, even when a "fake" Kira pops up with her own notebook and professes her undying love for Light. Light and L fight a life-and-death battle of wits for the sake of their own pride, and for their own personal value systems.

Because I am such a world-class nerdlinger, I had read the manga and watched the anime before seeing this film. Nobody really cares how the films and the original story differ, but there are some pretty major differences. Some of them make sense in terms of compressing the story to fit within the constraints of two movies, but others completely alter the outcome of the overall story, leaving characters out entirely and keeping some characters alive that otherwise died. It's still a good movie though, and for the most part, I can see why the changes were made. They also did a pretty stellar job in terms of casting and attention to some character details, especially for L. In the manga, he was a strange, slouchy, unusual young man, the opposite of what one would expect of the world's greatest detective. Ken'ichi Matsuyama pulled it off pretty well, mimicking the strange way L sat, ate, held objects, and interacted with other characters. This was the first film I'd seen him in, and I was thoroughly impressed. Tatsuya Fujiawara was impressive as Light Yagami as well, pulling off the cocky genius with ease, but still maintaining the intensity that drives his character to kill strangers over and over again to perfect the world. I had seen Fujiwara before in Battle Royale and its sequel, so I knew that he was a decent actor, and apparently quite popular in Japan.

While this is definitely not as crazy as some other Asian films I've talked about before, it's definitely one of the most darkly fantastical movies I'd seen in awhile. Also, upon closer inspection, it's the first Japanese film I've talked about so far. I have a few other waiting in the queue and in my own personal library (including some mega-craziness like Takeshi Miike), but I guess it's good that I'm starting out kind of small and then getting bigger.

One of the more interesting aspects of this film is the presence of the two shinigami, Ryuk and Rem. Ryuk owns the notebook that Light Yagami, the original Kira, finds, and Rem is the shinigami for the notebook that Misa Amane finds. Oh, right. Misa is a Japanese model and pop star whose family was murdered, but then Kira took care of their killer. She pledged her life to Kira, and when she finds (or is given) her notebook, she uses it to find Light and love/serve/honor/protect him. It's kind of a twisted and complex relationship that Light takes advantage of for his own gain (especially since she traded half of her remaining lifespan for "shinigami eyes," meaning she can see the name and remaining life of anyone she sees). Anyway. The shinigami are presented in the movie as computer generated, but something about them looks kind of ridiculous, and kind of awesome. They almost look like puppets in some ways, which makes them more "realistic" in that they seem to really be on set with the characters, but they also look computer generated (and kind of "fake," though they aren't supposed to be human, and are modeled exactly after the character drawings from the manga).

I may not be cultured enough in the life and times of the average Japanese youth, so I can't really tell if there is some general Japanese commentary being made in this story. There does seem to be an overarching global commentary being made, though. Even though Light is Japanese, and the crimes originate in Japan, his attention becomes global, drawing the attention of L, as well as the fear of the world's governments. L is portrayed as Japanese, but he didn't seem to live in Japan. The idea that he is of indeterminate origin is an interesting aspect to his character, and he doesn't seem to fit in with anyone, with the exception of Light. In Light, he finds an intellectual equal, though he is constantly in a crisis because he suspects Light of being Kira, the person he's sworn to bring to justice. Their relationship is in many ways closer than Light's relationship with every other female character (including his mother and sister), and L seems to have his only real friendship with Light.

What would you do if you had a notebook that allowed you to kill someone just by writing their name in? Of course, there are a million or so rules, like you have to picture their face while you write it, you have to spell it all correctly, you can't make them do something impossible before they die (but you can influence their actions to a limited degree), and so on. Would you experiment to stretch the limits of the Notebook? Would you be able to handle the responsibility of bringing justice and peace to the world as a god of death? Light sure tries his crazy genius ass off throughout the film. I won't give away the ending, though. Even if you have seen the anime or read the manga, don't worry. You won't see the ending coming anyway, and it's pretty much nothing like the other versions.

Overall, though, the movie isn't perfect, and could be better. There's something odd occasionally about the pacing and plot direction of Japanese films in general, which may be a cultural thing. The characters are pretty interesting, but they do have the rounded and developed characters already written up from the manga to go from. I give it three creepy, apple-eating gods of death out of five, or three creepy Japanese detectives out of five.